The .xxx domain, set to launch by the end of the year, is meant to be the domain of choice for porn sites. Which is dandy, but means that opportunists could register ‘google.xxx,’ for instance, and capitalize on Google’s popularity – so American universities are purchasing .xxx domains to keep people from making porn sites with their names in them.

It’s not clear that these schools particularly need to be snapping up .xxx domain names, mind you; everyone with a trademark will have the opportunity to reserve their names during a ‘sunrise period’ shortly following the launch of the .xxx domain, so folks wanting to keep their names clean, so to speak, shouldn’t have to pay for it.

Mostly this seems like internet service providers capitalizing on fear – telling well-known institutions that it would suck if somebody registered their names for porn sites, and charging them upwards of $200 per year for the privilege of preventing that from happening, even though they’d legally be able to do it for free.

[Source: ActivePolitic]