By Nate Lanxon and Amy Thomson
Parler, the social network popular with the alt-right and conspiracy theorists, reappeared with the help of a Russian-owned web security service as the website hunts for a way around bans that took it offline earlier this month.
“Our return is inevitable due to hard work, and persistence against all odds,” Chief Executive Officer John Matze wrote in a new post, the latest since Amazon Web Services stopped hosting the site and it was banned from Apple Inc. and Google’s app stores. “Despite the threats and harassment not one Parler employee has quit. We are becoming closer and stronger as a team.”
Parler, which was dropped by the big tech companies after it was used by members to incite violence at the U.S. Capitol, is now relying on a hosting service from DDoS-Guard Corp., which is owned by two Russians, Evgenii Marchenko and Aleksei Likhachev, according to documents filed with Companies House. DDoS-Guard’s website lists an Edinburgh location for its registered office.
Public data associated with the Parler.com domain name shows that one of the internet servers it directs visitors to is routed via DDoS-Guard. Another server, specifically for routing Parler.com email but not website content, is an Outlook.com address, operated by…
