This morning we brought you a story about the new .XXX web domain, which aims to be a sort of digital red light district allowing users to either easily find or easily avoid/block online pornographic material. The domain went live at 11:00, and over 80,000 individual domain names had been sold by the time our story ran.
As the day has gone on, an interesting twist on the original story has emerged. It is becoming apparent that a significant percentage of those buyers are officials from the nations colleges and universities. The Chicago Tribune reported this morning that several of Chicago’s schools had already reserved their domains. Similarly, the Columbus Dispatch reported that schools throughout Ohio – most notably Ohio State – were doing the same thing.
The going rate for these .XXX domains varies somewhat, but appears to be in the range of about $500 for a five year license, per address. That can make the practice pricey for institutions who want to make sure their bases are covered. The Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne, Indiana says that Indiana University spent over $2,000 on a collection of sites, including indianauniversity.xxx, hoosier.xxx, and iupui.xxx.
What exactly the schools mean to do with these websites remains unclear. Most will probably either leave them blank or cause them to redirect to official school sites.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers reached an agreement in April with ICM Registry to create the porn-friendly domain. As part of the deal, ICM consented to have place strong security and parental control measures in place to protect users. Also part of the deal was a nearly two-month window during which trademark holders were given first crack at the new domains. Between this window and the “land rush” period during which the domains were available in a for a higher premium 100,000 .xxx sites had already been purchased when the domains opened up for general sale at 11 AM today.