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Sunday, December 11, 2011

the "xxx" domain and the first buyers

An AP story on the organizations purchasing the new "xxx" domain addresses has caught my attention.

The new ".xxx" suffix, is an adults-only variation, aimed at the differentiation of adult content from other types of contents. The .xxx names went on sale to the public for the first time this week, following a two months period, in which those who wished to protect their brands were the exclusive buyers. 

Turns out  schools and businesses trying to prevent their good names from falling into the hands of the pornography industry were actively purchasing many variations of ".xxx" website names. In Toto, during this preliminary deployment period nearly 80,000 names have been registered, among them -
  • www.hoosiers.xxx
  • www.KUgirls.xxx, www.KUnurses.xxx; 
  • Nike.xxx; 
  • Pepsi.xxx;
  • Target.xxx;
According to the report, some of the buyers consider this "a modest cost of doing business in the world we live in", while others think it is not ok that any organization "should have to pay to protect its trademarks".

Although it is understandable that new times will bring new cultivation techniques to the fields of Trademark management and cultivation, I find myself quite bothered by the fact that one has to purchase domains one has no intention what so ever of ever using them, just in order to protect one's good name. 

What do you think ? 

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