It’s a Merry .XXXmas for the Most Unlikely Players in the Internet’s Newly Minted Red Light District
It appears I’ve found a blogging niche: the seedy, salacious, saucy legal topics everyone is too scared (or maybe smart) to write about. (And this topic doubles as a nice relief from the usual “holiday shopper gets mauled in battle over the last available Let’s Rock Elmo“ headlines.) Colleges, universities and businesses spent this holiday season shopping for a special kind of XXXmas gift — the gift of a good name.
On December 6, 2011, the new domain extension .xxx was gobbled up by the most unusual suspects, with more than 55,000 new names registered within the first 24 hours. The .xxx top level domain (TLD) was designed — prepare to be shocked here — exclusively for adult entertainment content. But ICM Registry, which is operating the new TLD, also opened up registrations to other organizations looking to protect their trademarks from scandalous misuse — or from those nefarious “cybersquatters” who might be looking for a buck NOT to put the domains to no good (like the brilliant entrepreneur who, in the wonder years of the Internet, operated WhiteHouse.com as a porn site (the real website is WhiteHouse.gov).
In other words, the Internet’s new red light district is open for business to those who were naughty OR nice this Christmas. But are the nice kids who come to the new .xxx marketplace late going to be at the mercy of the fast movers on the naughty list?
Continue reading the full story . . . »