Extremists most often try to make money online by selling extremist versions of common products to other extremists. For example, instead of spending his money on a New York Yankees jersey at an online sporting goods store, an extremist might visit the White Heritage Emporium site to purchase a "White Pride World Wide" T-shirt.

Selling Hate Music

Online, extremists devote more space, time, and energy to marketing rock music than any other product. The music on hate rock CDs effectively carries the white supremacist message to teenagers, and these CDs routinely sell for at least three times the amount they cost to produce. Because of their popularity among extremist consumers and their ties to violent extremist organizations, two particular distributors of hate rock CDs, Resistance Records and Panzerfaust Records, deserve special attention.

Resistance Records, founded in 1993, sold as many as 50,000 CDs per year before legal troubles led to its decline in 1997. The remains of Resistance were bought by William Pierce, leader of the National Alliance, in 1999 (the National Alliance is the largest and most active neo-Nazi organization in the United States). Pierce reinvigorated Resistance and predicts gross sales of more than $1 million in 2001. Based at the West Virginia headquarters of the National Alliance, Resistance reportedly receives about 50 orders per day, with each order averaging about $70 worth of merchandise. Many of these orders come via the well-designed Resistance Web site, which features articles from Resistance magazine and an online "radio station" that plays songs from the CDs in its inventory.>

Founded in September 1998 by former Resistance Records employee Eric Davidson and racist skinhead Anthony, Panzerfaust Records of Newport, Minnesota financially supports the largest and most violent racist skinhead group: the Hammerskin Nation. "Panzerfaust supports Hammerskin Nation 100%," Anthony commented in an interview with the Hammerskin Nation magazine, Hammerskin Press. "Together we have put out some great music and Panzerfaust will always be there to help sponsor and contribute Hammerskin projects and music."

Panzerfaust and the Hammerskins co-sponsored the Vinland Tour 2000, featuring Swedish group Pluton Svea, during March 2000 in cities including Detroit and Cleveland, Texas. Hammerskins play in many of the bands that have recorded for Panzerfaust, and these same bands perform at concerts sponsored by the Hammerskins. The Panzerfaust Web site sells CDs by such bands and promotes their concerts. According to Eric Davidson, "when you support Panzerfaust, you’re not pouring money into a hole…you’re helping finance a very serious fight."

Marketing Mainstream Items

Not all items sold by extremists online express extremist beliefs. By carrying products not obviously expressive of their beliefs, extremists potentially profit from sales to customers who are not extremists. For example, the Militia of Montana Web site sells common items such as sleeping bags, compasses, and First Aid kits in addition to books like "Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse," an important anti-government tome.

Moreover, consumers shopping at Web sites that are run by extremists but do not carry any items that are evidently extremist in nature may remain unaware of the politics of the people they are doing business with. For example, most consumers probably cannot distinguish the Hammer War Web site, which is run by neo-Nazi Michael Hammer, from legitimate Web sites that sell German militaria from the Second World War to collectors and historians. Citing his "passion for military history," Hammer sells "rare and hard to find" Nazi pins, postcards, maps, and other items. On his site, he divulges nothing about his personal views and neither publishes nor sells hate literature. Though his customers may have no way of knowing it, Michael Hammer in fact published The New Order, the newsletter of Nebraska neo-Nazi Gary Lauck, during the four years that Lauck was imprisoned in Germany for distributing neo-Nazi literature.

Selling Services: Web Design and Web Hosting

Finally, right-wing extremists use the Internet to sell not only goods, but also services. Two popular services, Web site design and Web hosting, simultaneously enrich sellers and help buyers more effectively spread hate online. Twenty-two year old Kelly Daniels of Ormond Beach, Florida, heads the most prominent extremist Web site design team, Candidus Productions. In 1999, he told a reporter that his company had 15 to 20 customers paying up to $300 each in fees and was "widely looked upon as being the best in Web design for White Racialism." According to Candidus Productions, "Regardless of whether you are selling a product, or trying to get a message out there, a professionally designed web site is what you NEED to get people to notice you." Former Klan leader Don Black, proprietor of the Stormfront Web site, offers space on his Web server to other sites for a $10 to $30 monthly "suggested" contribution. "Stormfront is an association of White activists on the Internet whose work is partially supported by providing webhosting for other sites," Black writes. "With increasing pressure to censor politically unfashionable ideas, we must work even harder to ensure our point of view continues to be accessible."