ICANN Sued Over .xxx; Porn Company Points Out That It's A Pure Money Grab
from the moneygrab.xxx dept
Even worse, it appears that the registrar handling .xxx, ICM recognizes this and is even advertising with that in mind:
When the sellers of .xxx domain names put them on sale last week, they did not address their marketing campaigns just to adult content owners. Instead, they ran ads with headlines like ".XXX LANDRUSH IS NOW OPEN. PROTECT YOUR BRAND" or "SECURE YOUR DOMAIN. PROTECT YOUR REPUTATION," By heeding their warnings, brands, universities, and individuals flocked to the sites of domain name sellers and bought up tens of thousands of names, at about $200 per name. According to press reports, more than 70,000 applications have been received since the doors opened, netting sellers more than $15 million barely out of the gate.Basically, the company admits that this is a borderline shakedown: if you want to "protect" yourself from someone building a porn site with your brand, pay up.
The whole thing appears to have angered online porn giant Manwin Licensing International, who is now suing ICANN and ICM saying that the whole thing is about "monopolistic conduct, price gouging, and anticompetitive and unfair practices." I would imagine that in any such lawsuit, ICM's advertising practices around the "buy up or else" won't look too good...