In an effort to protect its online reputation and trademarks, OU administrators have begun to purchase .xxx domain names that would otherwise be open to companies and individuals involved in the adult entertainment industry.

These new domain names became available in March, after the not-for-profit corporation Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers authorized their sale solely by a Florida-based company named ICM Registry.

Since that time, departments on all three OU Campuses have purchased .xxx domain names, including ouhsc.xxx, oklahomasooners.xxx, oumedicine.xxx and “domain names registered with select coaches’ names,” university spokesman Michael Nash said in an email.

“We’ve taken steps to protect our trademarks by registering select domain names so they are not used inappropriately by third parties,” Nash said.

In doing so, OU administrators believe they have taken steps “to avoid any inappropriate use by third parties and to protect OU’s brand, image and reputation” Nash said.

A comprehensive list of .xxx domain names owned by OU is not available as of press time because many different university departments participated in the registration, Nash said.

“I don’t believe there is anyone who has one comprehensive list because a variety of areas across all three campuses captured domain names,” Nash said in an email.

The university paid between $179 and $300 to secure each domain name for a ten-year period because of the legal fees incurred while clarifying existence of the university’s trademark, ICM Registry spokeswoman Jocelyn Johnson said.

As the sole proprietor of .xxx domain names, ICM Registry sells the sites principally to adult entertainment companies, according to the .xxx registry agreement between ICANN and ICM Registry. In addition to companies looking to profit from .xxx domain names, ICM Registry also opened the sale to entities interested in buying domains to protect their trademarks with no interest in using them, according to the company’s domain sales and launch data.

To accomplish this, ICM provided two purchase windows called “sunrises,” between September 7th and October 28th according to the company website.

Sunrise A offered domains to companies with trademarks in the adult media industry, according to company sales policies.

Sunrise B, in which OU participated, was open only to applicants who sought to “reserve a .xxx name corresponding to a registered trademark that will ... resolve to a standard informational page,” according to the ICM Registry .xxx launch plan and related policies on the company’s website.

By participating in Sunrise B, OU also applied to have all purchased domain names removed from ICM Registry’s database of available domain names.