10 Dec Protection of your business domain name!
New .xxx suffix too tempting to ignore
Last updated 05:00 11/12/2011
IAN STEWARD
An adults-only, racy Trade Me?
New Zealand companies are scrambling to buy up the new .xxx pornography version of their internet addresses, but not to create X-rated versions of their sites.
The new .xxx suffix for websites officially went on sale on Tuesday, aiming to create a home for the internet’s vast store of pornography, which is currently available on .com and .net websites.
New Zealand companies have been quick to act, with such brands as trademe.xxx and allblacks.xxx already taken.
The rationale is not to use the new addresses, but to prevent others from using them and besmirching their good names.
New Zealand Rugby Union public affairs general manager Nick Brown confirmed the union had purchased the allblacks.xxx name. “We think that purchasing this domain is a sensible way to protect the integrity of our brand.”
Air New Zealand said it bought its .xxx domain as “standard practice” to protect the company brand.
Trade Me spokesman Paul Ford said they had used a “protection mechanism” to block trademe.xxx from being registered.
He said there was a “general desire” not to have Trade Me associated with the xxx domain, but they also wanted to protect people from fraud. “We don’t want scammers and other nefarious types using the Trade Me name to host a dodgy site in Nigeria or Romania.”
Mystery surrounds the address bnz.xxx.
Someone has reserved the domain but a spokeswoman from the bank said it wasn’t the BNZ.
For those with the desire to set up their own adult site, all is not lost – among those still available for registration are tvnz.xxx, radionz.xxx, and nzpolice.xxx.
– Sunday Star Times