Adult content (“Pornsquatting”)

Brands don’t like having pornographic content associated with their names on the Internet. However, this type of use among domain names is widespread and known as “pornsquatting”. Victims need to react quickly to pornsquatting, or risk having their brand name associated with undesirable values. New Internet extensions have capitalized on this fear, creating .SEX, .PORN or .XXX.

Adult content

Some Internet addresses seem quite innocent, but can lead to confusion with the associated brands. The following domain names batondeberger.com, france2.com, goyardonline.com, ikeagifts.info, i-tele.com, lesbonscoins.com, sothys-spa.com all offered pornographic content to Internet users.

Pornsquatting has even affected Apple with the domain name iphone4s.com. The holder of this disputed domain name also held the other lascivious Internet addresses iphonecamforce.com, iphonecam4s.com, iphoneporn4s.com, iphonesex4s.com, iphonexxxforce.com, porn4iphones.com or sex4iphones.com, all recovered in a single extrajudicial procedure.

In 2017, mobile app Snapchat, won a legal action against the 3 domain names snap-chat.biz, snap-chat.org and snap-chat.me, offering sexual encounters and the sale of pornographic material.

Association of the trademark with pornographic terms

The spelling of domain names offering pornographic content is sometimes a clue. axaporn.com, skypesexe.com or leboncoinducul.com didn’t leave much doubt as to the salacious usage associated. The random webcam chat service Chatroulette has picked up several domain names associating it with adult terms such as amateurchatroulette.com, analchatroulette.com, ebonychatroulette.com or maturechatroulette.com.

An escort girl has chosen the domain name badhellokitty.com to offer her dominatrix services. French insurance group AXA took over the queenaxa.com domain used for adult content by the “queen of lesbian domination”. redbullescort.net aimed to “give wings” to its visitors.
The condom brand Durex didn’t take kindly to durex.info being used for “pornsquatting”.
Model agency Elite had to react swiftly to stop the child pornography site featuring its brand under the address EliteTeenVids.com.

Brands in the adult sector are also victims of pornsquatting. hustler.co, pornhubarchive.com and redtubeporn.org have launched UDRP proceedings to recover their cybersquatted domain names.

Adult internet extensions .ADULT, .PORN, .SEX, .XXX

In 2011, a new Internet extension appeared, .XXX, dedicated to the adult sector.
With foresight, the registry holding .XXX organized a priority registration period (“sunrise period”) so that classic brands could block their .XXX domain names and thus avoid pornographic content associated with their names.
80,000 brands took part in this “sunrise period”, generating over 13 million dollars in revenue for the private registry. ICANN’s “NewgTLD” program awarded the private registry three other sultry new extensions: .ADULT, .PORN and .SEX.

Disputes arise among these adult extensions such as Polish bank bgz.xxx, erectile dysfunction drug cialis.sex, social network linkedin.sex D2015-2224, airline lufthansa.adult and lufthansa.porn, Virgin chairman RichardBranson.xxx, video platform Vevo.xxx.

Every day, Solidnames alerts companies to domain name registrations featuring their brands and potentially using adult content.

Solidnames’ SecURL service allows you to be notified of content changes, such as theactivation of a pornographic site.

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