ICM Registry’s .XXX domain has been dominating the headlines on not only domain publications but also in mainstream media. Just this morning, the top story on the Yahoo.com homepage is an article titled “Non-porn players rush to grab .xxx websites”.
The article mentions several colleges and organizations that were compelled to buy .XXX domains to prevent porn sites from being developed on such names. Three specific domains mentioned were CalBears.xxx, KUnurses.xxx, KUgirls.xxx. I can understand some registrations, especially if some names did not meet trademark requirements as was the case for CalBears.xxx (University of California).
Apparently the University of Kansas spent over $3,000 on registering .XXX names. KU Girls? KU Nurses? Whoever in charge of buying these names at KU must be quite paranoid. If they mentioned the stronger names they bought to the media I’d love to see the rest of the list.
The mainstream media coverage of ICM’s .XXX domain space for the most part has been fairly negative. Most of the headlines about .XXX are focused on how non porn businesses and organizations feel they are being forced to spend $XXX annually to protect their mark on .XXX. Although .XXX is an advertiser on this blog, I honestly feel that the .XXX space has many benefits for the adult industry and people that access those sites as well.
I agree with Mike Berkens opinion on an article he recently published titled “It’s Time For ICM & Registrars To Start Selling .XXX On Its Merits Rather Than For Protection”. Perhaps ICM Registry should have started their mass advertising campaign earlier with a focus on informing the general public that TM names could have been reserved in Sunrise periods.
This week’s news that ICM Registry suspended trademarked names came as no surprise. While this sheds some positive light on ICM’s efforts I think they should have blocked registration of obvious TM names before they were able to be registered. Of course, hindsight is 20/20. No doubt that many potential new gTLD purveyors have been watching and learning from the .XXX extension.
I am confident that the .XXX extension will slowly but surely be used more and more by the adult industry. So, the age old question remains, is any exposure good exposure?
Video (Fox News) .XXX Domain Names Get Green Light Online
Mainstream media is having a field day with this. It just amazes me how a domain extension could provide such a chaotic reaction. One thing that can be taken from this is the fact that domain names are not dead. 🙂
Jason – Mainstream media really is having a field day with .XXX, imagine if every new TLD were to have this kind of exposure.
I think that the press has painted .xxx as bad, evil, full of porn.
So the surfers will surely go to see all this terrible bad stuff.
So in this cases bad publicity is good publicity, drives more defensive registrations and drives traffic to the porn.
Saves ICM Registry 5 million in ad costs, lol.
Paul – “So the surfers will surely go to see all this terrible bad stuff.”
Hahah, exactly my thoughts.. I agree with you, almost any exposure is good for .XXX.
.xxx is adult/porn, which is controversial. Mainstream media loves controversial. Match made in heaven.
I wouldn’t mind all that – what I mind are all the articles that have scared many mainstream businesses into needlessly blocking or registering their name in .xxx. I still can’t get over that KU registered KUNurses.xxx when no other extension had EVER been registered!