Harvard University, Microsoft Corporation and singer Taylor Swift are among groups, brands and celebrities purchasing website addresses with suffixes like .porn or .adult.
As The Associated Press reports:
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, is making Internet address suffixes beyond the usual .com or .org available for people and businesses to use. While some are in Chinese or other languages besides English, others could include the likes of .music, .app or, of course, .porn… Microsoft has bought not only Microsoft.porn but Office.porn and Office.adult as well.
The AP describes such address purchases as a “pre-emptive move.”
CNN Money reports that addresses with suffixes like .porn are currently available only to “a select group of people and companies, including trademarked brands.” That will change in a few months, however.
“Anyone can buy a .porn, and .sucks website starting June 1st, so brands are trying to scoop them up before the Internet trolls do,” according to CNN Money.
Meanwhile, Yahoo Finance reports that addresses with .sucks suffixes might soon cause a similar shopping spree:
Companies will have to decide whether it’s worth $2,500 a year to tie up a .sucks address during a 60-day early access period set aside for trademark owners and celebrities that begins March 30. If they don’t, anyone in the world will be able to register the name and set up their own protest site.
Would you pay for one of these website addresses? What if you were a high-profile celeb or in charge of a well known brand? Let us know what you think with a comment below or on our Facebook page.
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