So what is stopping somebody who already lives overseas from starting a site?
Originally Posted by Paulie
Not much, but there is a risk the government will use some provisions from fosta/sesta to prosecute the site owner, even if they don’t live here. That part of the law has never been tested to my knowledge, so we don’t know how effective it would be. The owners of some of these pure ad sights are betting the US government won’t pursue them (located somewhere not friendly to extradition) or can’t catch them (my theory is there is one owner of rubrankings, rubmd, etc., and he or she keeps shutting down sites and creating new ones to stay ahead of law enforcement), and that’s why they continue on.
Taking down the advertising sites is an expensive undertaking, and despite all the money being thrown at the “trafficking problem”, there aren’t enough resources to go after all the outlets. Still, there are plenty of disincentives from entering the market right now, which I believe is why you don’t see more people do it.