University officials pulled the plug on Packet Storm Security, a controversial Web site Harvard had been hosting, after discovering that the site contained an off-color parody, administrators said this week.

The decision drew fire from the Web site's owner, Ken Williamson, who said he had not been contacted by University officials about the decision, which he said was an overreaction to a harmless joke.

The decision ended an unusual exception to University policy. Harvard does not ordinarily host outside sites, but bent the rules to accommodate the computer security site, which the University said was serving a public good.

Harvard officials said they pulled the site offline because it contained sexually related material, including a high school yearbook mug shot of the sister of a rival Web site's founder.

"What caused me to write Harvard officials was [the site owner] got a yearbook picture of my sister, who was 17 years old at the time, all sorts of suggestive, derogatory remarks about her and the address of my parents," said John Vranesvich, who ran the rival site, AntiOnline.com.

"That goes far beyond free speech," Vranesvich added.

After locating the material on the site, Harvard administrators agreed to take it offline.

"It was controversial and basically it came down to a question of appropriateness," said Mark Van Baalen, a University Information Services official. "Harvard wanted to do the right thing, and then other people didn't like the way that turned out."

Williamson--who has not yet found another host for the site--said he felt Harvard's response was inappropriate.