Just before Longwood University's winter break began, an opportunity to protect their brand and name arose by employing a domain registration site on the Internet. The site allows universities to buy the domains to their name so they will not be affiliated or misconstrued with anything that may be inappropriate or harmful to the school. In this case, it is for protection against the newly licensed ".xxx" domains.
Normally, this type of purchase is used to protect university sites from being associated with anything in the adult entertainment industry; however, the buy itself goes beyond that as the website and all of its rights and affiliations belong to the buyer. The buyer can utilize these rights to the domain at any point in time, especially if they at all feel if their brand has been threatened.
Director of Web Communications at Longwood University David Hooper was able to comment on the recent purchases the school made to protect their name as well as their brand. Longwood purchased four web domains associated with the school. Those names are "longwooduniversity.xxx," "mylongwood.xxx," "whylongwoood.xxx" and "ylongwood.xxx."
Hooper explained that Longwood purchased these names for the same reason other schools such as Virginia Tech and Notre Dame purchased them: to protect their name and the brand. He said the school has no plans to use them yet, but will simply hold on to them in case any issue comes up in the future to use them.
When asked if this purchase was a worthy investment, Hooper said it would be hard to tell right now because they have only had the domains since December 16, 2011, when Longwood officially made the buy. He said if anything, it would be important to hold on to them for now and prevent them from being used against the school in the future.
The opportunity to purchase these web domains became available on Dec. 6, in which Hooper and others from the Public Relations Department were notified by Information and Instructional Technology Services (IITS) at Longwood. Once the domains were purchased, they were and still are handled by Hooper and others within the Public Relations department.
Each domain purchase made by Longwood was relatively low due to the amount of domains purchased as well as the length of time Longwood will maintain the ownership of the sites. Longwood made their buys through a typical domain registration site and only set up the ownership to last one year.
Hooper explained the prices of the domains vary with each school by the number of domains purchased and for however long the buyer decides to maintain the ownership of the site. The price of each domain for Longwood in particular was $129 per year. "The price wasn't that bad to protect or brand," said Hooper. He said after one year, when the university reevaluates the need for the domains, they may only keep a couple as opposed to the four they have now.
Other schools that have also purchased .xxx domains are Penn State, East Carolina Uni
