Porn-Industry Outsiders Fear 'Shakedown' In .XXX TLD

The long-debated .XXX top-level domain opens this week; reader SonicSpike sends a snippet from the Washington Times about what may turn into a hornet's nest of anger at how the new domain is being used: "Some adult-entertainment companies are balking at the entire scheme, saying that ICM Registry LLC, which is overseeing .xxx registrations worldwide, does not have permission to sell the .xxx version of trademarked names and brands. In addition, the Florida-based company is raising eyebrows — and charges of 'shakedown' — by trying to get non-porn companies to pay to prevent their brands from being registered as .xxx sites. After all, what maker of baby food or children's movies, for example, would want to have sites such as gerber.xxx or disney.xxx floating around the Internet?"

Comments

Re:This has already been discussed

[characterZer0]

A couple hundred bucks so something bad does not happen to you (wink wink) is a shakedown, regardless of how much money the shakee has.

Re:This has already been discussed

[gstrickler]

If a trademark owner has to pay again each year to prevent their registered trademark from being used in each TLD, that sounds like a "protection racket" to me. And when they keep adding new TLDs, the cost and effort keeps rising each year. I don't know what the solution is, but the current system definitely resembles "paying for protection".