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Dayton Business Journal...
Schools go
after .xxx domain names
by Laura Englehart
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Institutions in the Dayton region have taken steps online to protect
their brands from the adult entertainment industry.
Following the introduction of the “.xxx” Web site domain — meant for
pornography purveyors, strip clubs, shops that sell sex products and
related others — schools across the country, including the University
of Dayton, have reserved the .xxx versions of their domain names to
ensure they don’t fall into the wrong hands.
At the same time, domain names, such as muohio.xxx and
miamiuniversity.xxx, have been snatched up by outside buyers who, in
some cases, hope to make a few dollars selling those domains to Miami
University in Oxford or other schools.
The .xxx domain name was made available by Palm Beach, Fla.-based ICM
Registry LLC, billed as a way for adult entertainment providers to
distinguish themselves so that “those who wanted to find it could find
it more easily; those who wanted to avoid it could more easily avoid
it,” said spokeswoman Jocelyn Johnson.
ICM Registry manages the .xxx domains and sells them through Internet
domain registrars, such as GoDaddy.com. As Johnson put it, ICM Registry
is like Ford and registrars are like car dealers.
That has opened sites that previously were not available as dot-coms
and allowed those in the adult entertainment business and opportunists
to buy domains with common trademarks.
Eric Chesbrough, of Michigan, has been purchasing domain names since he
was 12 years old. The Michigan State University
graduate, now 21, said he has made a few thousand dollars from selling
“.com” domains and others he has bought along the way.
When .xxx domains were released, he purchased four including one in the
name of his alma mater and miamiuniversity.xxx, for $99 per year. Since
then, Chesbrough said he has been approached by several buyers who have
offered him $300 to $700.
“I just wanted to give the schools the first opportunity to buy (the
domain) from someone credible,” he said.
Some Dayton region schools did not take any chances. This month, the
University of Dayton bought daytonflyers.xxx and Wittenberg
University took wittenberg.xxx.
Meanwhile, unknown buyers picked up udayton.xxx and
universityofdayton.xxx. And muohio.xxx was purchased by Ryan Verner of
Oakbrook, Ill., according to a GoDaddy.com database.
Claire Wagner, director of news and public information for Miami
University, said the school attempted to purchase some .xxx domains
this month, but found they already had been taken.
Other .xxx domains with school names remain available, such as
wrightstate.xxx and wsuraiders.xxx.
For universities, it is a good idea to register .xxx domains,
especially those that carry principal trademarks, said Kimberly
Gambrel, an intellectual property lawyer and partner in the
Cincinnati-based firm Dinsmore & Shohl LLP, which
has an office in Dayton.
“I think it’s just a great prophylactic measure,” Gambrel said. “The
obvious advantage is that it protects trademarks and the names of
entities with a devoted following from appropriation by unscrupulous
parties who may seek to use these to lure persons to adult Web sites.”
She recommends schools analyze the domain names they already own and
choose those that are the “primary portals to the public via the
Internet” to purchase, rather than try to buy up all variations, which
could prove costly.
Some schools across the country have spent thousands to reserve more
than just their trademarks, however. The University of
Kansas dropped $3,000 to reserve KUnurses.xxx and
KUgirls.xxx, among other domains, and Indiana University paid $2,200
for hoosiers.xxx and 10 other names, MSNBC.com reported.
For institutions whose names already have been taken, there is good
news: Those .xxx domains still can be protected from purchasers looking
to make a buck and adult entertainment providers who could sully their
reputations.
A university that discovers its name or trademark has been incorporated
into a domain could file a complaint under the Uniform Dispute
Resolution Procedure, or UDRP. The claimant must show that the buyer
registered the name in bad faith, with the objective to profit in a way
that is not legitimate, Gambrel said.
Schools also could file a lawsuit against “cybersquatters” — those who
register domain names that contain trademarks with the sole intent to
sell them to the trademark owner or a third party — under the
Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.
But those actions can cost considerable dollars. Gambrel said, for
someone to file a UDRP complaint, fees and attorney time could run them
about $5,000, which in turn creates a market for domain purchasers who
will accept a lesser buyout.
“Sometimes, when you’re talking about small infringers, you can manage
to pay them off for a few hundred dollars,” Gambrel said. “It may hurt
your pride to do it, but it’s certainly an option.”
As a faster and less expensive option, ICM Registry has set up a
dispute mechanism on its Web site that allows trademark owners to
protest a .xxx domain purchase by someone they suspect as a
cybersquatter and that domain will be suspended within 24 hours. A
policy also prevents repeat abusers from registering more “.xxx”
domains.
But why are schools rushing to buy up .xxx domains when anyone could
reserve a domain with a trademark name in another form, such as “.biz,”
or “.info,” and create any kind of Web site?
“I don’t think there’s any greater risk (with .xxx) than there is with
any other new top-level domain, but obviously, people who don’t wish to
be associated with the adult entertainment industry certainly loathe
the idea,” Gambrel said. “That is the kind of thing they would want to
stop more aggressively than an unauthorized purveyor of T-shirts. It
all depends on the sensitivity.”
And “the sensitivity,” Johnson said, “is that everyone knows what
(.xxx) is for.”
Read this and other articles at the Dayton Business Journal
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