I’m sexy, but not that sexy — .xxx domain names

From 6 Decem­ber 2011 any indi­vid­ual, com­pa­ny or organ­i­sa­tion is per­mit­ted to apply for a new .XXX (or triple X) domain name. Now that the sun­rise peri­od has end­ed, eli­gi­bil­i­ty will be deter­mined on a first come, first served basis.

.XXX domain names were approved by the Inter­na­tion­al Cor­po­ra­tion for Assigned Names and Num­bers (ICANN) ear­li­er this year and are designed for the adult enter­tain­ment indus­try. Web­sites with .xxx address­es will focus exclu­sive­ly on adult enter­tain­ment con­tent, and appli­cants will need to cer­ti­fy that they belong to that industry.

How­ev­er brand own­ers who are not mem­bers of the adult enter­tain­ment indus­try are able to apply to block a .XXX domain to ensure that their brand names and valu­able intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty are not reg­is­tered as .xxx domain names. In this way, the sys­tem will ensure that valu­able brands are not hijacked, and not sub­ject to poten­tial­ly sig­nif­i­cant brand dam­age by being asso­ci­at­ed with adult con­tent that may con­flict with the brand’s values.

If your busi­ness is con­cerned that a third par­ty .XXX domain reg­is­tra­tion using your brand name may dam­age your busi­ness­es rep­u­ta­tion or imply an affil­i­a­tion or asso­ci­a­tion that does not exist, you may wish to apply to block that name from being part of a .xxx domain name.

These new .XXX domain reg­is­tra­tions are sub­ject to exist­ing rights pro­tec­tion mech­a­nisms, includ­ing the Uni­form Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion Pol­i­cy, but it may be more cost effec­tive for your busi­ness to pre-emp­tive­ly block a .XXX domain name that con­tains your brand name.

If your busi­ness would like to under­stand more about .XXX domain name reg­is­tra­tions, please con­tact Swaab Attorneys.