The Associated Press reports that colleges are registering their brands as .xxx domain names to prevent porn sites from doing so.
Their strategy takes advantage of the sunrise provisions for .xxx domain names that STL discussed here.
That’s a fine strategy for brand owners who have concluded that blocking porn providers is worth the financial commitment required to register domain names the brand owners will never use.
After all, a porn site associated with universityofwashington.xxx probably wouldn’t reflect well on the University of Washington (who is mentioned in the article), even though no one would think the site is owned or approved by the UW in any way.
Still, it requires the UW and similar brand owners to pay a bunch of money to domain name registrars forever to continue to tie up those names. And there’s no way a brand owner can think of all possible combinations involving their brand that a porn seller might use.
Indeed, knowing a .xxx site isn’t likely to create a likelihood of confusion with the brand owner’s legitimate site, brand owners may choose to ignore the .xxx issue.
It’s just too bad the .xxx scheme is potentially as much of a headache for brand owners as it is a boon for domain name registrars.