The University of Kansas is buying up Web site names such as www.KUgirls.xxx and www.KUnurses.xxx, but not because it is planning a Hot Babes of Kansas site.
Instead, the university and countless other schools and businesses are rushing to prevent their good names from falling into the hands of the pornography industry. Over the past two months, they have snapped up tens of thousands of “.xxx” Web site names that could be exploited by the adult entertainment business.
“Down the road there’s no way we can predict what some unscrupulous entrepreneur might come up with,” University of Kansas trademark licensing director Paul Vander Tuig said.
The university spent nearly US$3,000 in all. It plans to sit on the .xxx names and do nothing with them.
The brand-new .xxx suffix is an adults-only variation on .com. The .xxx name went on sale to the public for the first time this week, promoted as a way to enable porn sites to distinguish themselves and a means of making it easier for Internet filters to screen out things parents do not want their children to see.
ICM Registry of Palm Beach, Florida, is the exclusive manager of the .xxx names and sells them through a dozen middleman companies, such as GoDaddy.com, for an average of US$100 a year.
Indiana University spokesman Mark Land said the school spent US$2,200 to buy www.hoosiers.xxx and 10 other such names. Other Indiana schools took the same step, including Purdue University and Ball State University.
“This is just a modest cost of doing business in the world we live in,” Land said.
ICM sold .xxx names for the past two months exclusively to companies and others that wanted to protect their brands from the porn industry. During the so-called sunrise sale, ICM registered nearly 80,000 names, chairman and chief executive Stuart Lawley said.
A search of ICM’s database finds prominent brand names — including Nike.xxx, Pepsi.xxx and Target.xxx — among those purchased.
“Target has applied to block a number of the .xxx domains that correspond with our registered trademarks,” said Lee Henderson, a spokesman for the -Minneapolis-based store chain.
“We do not plan to use the domains,” he added, dryly.
The Internet Corp for Assigned Names and Numbers, which the US government established in 1998 to run the Internet’s address system, authorized creation of .xxx earlier this year.
The strongest opposition to the suffix has come from the adult entertainment industry.
The Free Speech Coalition, the industry’s trade group, lobbied against its creation, complaining among other things about the registration fees.
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
EUROPEAN FUTURE? Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama says only he could secure EU membership, but challenges remain in dealing with corruption and a brain drain Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama seeks to win an unprecedented fourth term, pledging to finally take the country into the EU and turn it into a hot tourist destination with some help from the Trump family. The artist-turned-politician has been pitching Albania as a trendy coastal destination, which has helped to drive up tourism arrivals to a record 11 million last year. US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also joined in the rush, pledging to invest US$1.4 billion to turn a largely deserted island into a luxurious getaway. Rama is expected to win another term after yesterday’s vote. The vote would
CANCER: Jose Mujica earned the moniker ‘world’s poorest president’ for giving away much of his salary and living a simple life on his farm, with his wife and dog Tributes poured in on Tuesday from across Latin America following the death of former Uruguayan president Jose “Pepe” Mujica, an ex-guerrilla fighter revered by the left for his humility and progressive politics. He was 89. Mujica, who spent a dozen years behind bars for revolutionary activity, lost his battle against cancer after announcing in January that the disease had spread and he would stop treatment. “With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our comrade Pepe Mujica. President, activist, guide and leader. We will miss you greatly, old friend,” Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi wrote on X. “Pepe, eternal,” a cyclist shouted out minutes later,
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
RSS