University officials are concerned that a new Internet domain could allow adult-entertainment companies to acquire Web addresses connecting pornography and other explicit material to trademarks such as Ohio University's Rufus the Bobcat.
The new .xxx ending was approved earlier this year and will provide a domain specifically designed for sexually explicit websites, the Associated Press reported.
Some higher-education institutions are worried the adult-entertainment industry might try to take advantage of their trademarked names by registering .xxx versions of URLs containing school names and brands.
Ohio State University, the University of Akron and Oberlin College are all in the process of buying new .xxx Web addresses to prevent such a thing from happening. Each domain name costs $200.
The universities are planning to buy the domain names and keep the Web pages blank, the Associated Press reported.
OU has yet to decide whether or not it will follow suit, said Becky Watts, chief of staff to OU President Roderick McDavis.
“The decision is under consideration at this time,” she said. “We’re still evaluating the risk,” she said.
In addition, OU will be safeguarded partially by its copyright protections, said Brice Bible, OU's chief information officer, in an email.
“(The Office of Information Technology) has elected to pre-register protection for the .edu domains we currently own,” Bible said.
By pre-registering, OU will be able to reserve its websites in the .xxx domain before the domain names are available to the public Dec. 6.
Searches at buy.xxx, a website that lists all available Web addresses in the .xxx domain, found that ohio.xxx and ou.xxx have been reserved but that ohiouniversity.xxx, ohiobobcats.xxx and ohiou.xxx are still available.
bv111010@ohiou.edu
