How To Register .XXX Domain Name And Protect Your Brand Name
Surprisingly, today’s post isn’t about Google Plus, Twitter Tools or Facebook Tools! This month saw the launch of the .xxx internet domain, from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a dedicated domain for the adult industry. ICANN hope using an obvious classification such as this will improve search for adult sites and help parents and schools more readily identify and filter these sites to protect children.
What does this mean for you?
Currently, ICANN is offering a pre-launch a.k.a. “Sunrise” phase to allow all types of businesses to claim an .xxx domain version of their URL. Why would businesses do this? Simply to protect the reputation of their brands by preventing adult sites from cybersquatting and/or claiming the brand name for themselves. No company wants an adult site using their brand name, so $300 to claim your domain isn’t such a bad deal.
In fact, media reports are stating that over 900,000 companies have requested to claim their name, of which 80% are not adult sites.
But is it good for adult sites?
Whether adult sites will move to the new domain is another question in itself. If you are hosting an adult site, your new .xxx domains can be more easily blocked since they are readily identifiable.
Jerry Barnet, chairman of the Adult Industry Trade Association explains,
“I have mixed feeling about it..From the industry and freedom of speech point of view, I’m concerned that pro-censorship and morality campaigners will use this as an excuse to try and introduce some form of censorship.
“But from a business point of view it’s kind of good for us because there are new names available, and that makes branding and site naming more interesting.”
I can’t help thinking that even if adult sites move to .xxx domains, they’re still continue to have .com domain as well so I don’t know how effective it’ll be. It seems ICANN is the real winner in all this considering how much they’re making from the pre-registrations from non-adult sites alone.
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You might want to point out that the Sunrise and Landrush periods have something of a restriction for non adult sites. The application for an xxx domain name during these periods require that the non adult sector applicant has a trademark or ip registration for the name they wish to use with the xxx extension. Those without such proof will be unlikely to succeed, as adult sector applicants will have priority. The like of Coca Cola and Kodak won’t have any issues but smaller companies may not be so lucky. The ‘free for all’ application begins in December but will be on a ‘first come first served’ basis, so it might pay to pre-order now.