LOS ANGELES — More than one-third of adult entertainment industry professionals plan to buy .XXX domain names, either to defensively protect their existing brands/trademarks or to develop and market new websites, according to a new XBIZ Research poll.
The online poll, which ran from May 1 to June 1, 2011, sheds new light on how adult entertainment businesses are planning to respond after ICM Registry was given the green light by ICANN’s board to begin selling domain names under the .XXX extension.
The results are based on the opinions of nearly 400 adult entertainment industry business operators, registered members of XBIZ.net, the adult entertainment industry’s top social network. XBIZ asked, “Now that .XXX has been approved, do you plan on purchasing .XXX domains?”
According to the XBIZ Research poll, 13 percent said that they will acquire .XXX domain names to develop and market new websites, while 22 percent said they planned .XXX purchases to protect existing brands and trademarks. Those responses for those willing to purchase .XXX domains add up to 35 percent of all responses.
A further 17 percent of respondents stated they won’t acquire .XXX domain names because they don’t see the value, while 35 percent of respondents claim that they won’t purchase them because they do not want to support .XXX.
Thirteen percent of respondents are undecided on the issue.
“The poll’s figures show that the adult entertainment industry takes seriously the ramifications of brand dissolution or lost potential revenue with the roll out of .XXX,” said Don Parret, XBIZ's executive director of publishing. “With many in the community refusing to buy into or seeing no value in them at all, others have elected to buy .XXX domains to protect their existing brands or to exploit their potential under the new TLD.”
The .XXX TLD was added to the Internet’s root server in April after ICANN gave its blessing for the new sponsored top-level domain. Currently .XXX is in its Sunrise period, where trademark owners can prevent cybersquatting by registering trademarked domain names. General availability is expected to start sometime in September.
“There are doubtless many within the adult entertainment industry that do not publicly favor .XXX, but equally as doubtless is that some of these voices secretly represent speculators interested in exploiting the potential of .XXX domains,” Yagielowicz said.
.XXX defensive registrations, Parret noted, may be key to the TLD's revenue stream and perhaps its survival.
"As evidence in the poll's results, it appears that defensive .XXX registrations will make up a substantial share of ICM Registry's business," he said.
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