The PPC agency world is often invigorated by internet arguments and debates, and one which has caught our attention is Virgin Group getting cross about someone registering the richardbranson.xxx domain name.
Okay, enough of the smirking; we’re trying to be serious here. Now, .xxx domain names were created so that people could no longer complain that they had wandered onto sites full of inappropriate content.
Great idea. The big elephant in the online world is that the great portal of the 21st Century is actually there to provide a steady stream of porn. Separating the dubious sites away from the so called more legit sites is a way of trying to keep the elephant sat firmly in its box.
But the problem is that many companies would be more appreciative of the .xxx suffix if they didn’t have to fork out a whole load more notes to protect their brands and IPs from being exploited by pornographers.
Companies, organisations and quite a few individuals feel like moving targets every time a new batch of domain names become available. So, okay, people were given the opportunity to register for the .xxx name once they were announced, in order to protect their brands. But the cost of protecting each and every single version of a .xxx domain name that could be connected with a brand, or identity, is significant. And it’s the domain name providers who are rubbing their hands with glee, not the people having to buy them.
So, understandably, it’s not just that Virgin are concerned about their boss being connected with some adult site, but that they have to fork out a load more money to keep protecting their online position.