To avoid smut links, colleges buying up new .xxx domains

YOU WON'T be able to view porn at WestChester.xxx or LaSalle.xxx anytime soon.

But WestChestier.xxx and LaSalivate.xxx are still available for unscrupulous pornographers who want to make a buck off the schools' names.

Last month, new and uncharted territory opened up - a land bordered by red lights and bound only by imagination . . . or latex, if that's your thing.

The real-estate developers in this land are mostly pornographers, but colleges and universities are among a surprising crop of investors that also have bought property in this lascivious land.

The new .xxx domain, often referred to as "dot-triple-x," was approved in March by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers and became available for purchase by the public last month.

The domain, a suffix that works the same as a .com, .org or .edu, is intended for easy categorization of pornography websites. However, xxx might not be the kind of thing every entity would want associated with its name.

That's why universities and other organizations scrambled to buy up .xxx domains that could be associated with their schools. They didn't want to wake up one morning and find themselves inadvertently linked to porn, like some coed whose disgruntled ex swore he'd erase those pictures right after he took them.

Joe Donovan, spokesman for La Salle University, said the school paid $100 apiece for three .xxx domains.

"We see it as a modest investment that takes the most obvious connections to La Salle off the porno table," Donovan said. "It's a very small investment for what could turn out to be something that is embarrassing."

Four other local universities - Temple, Drexel, West Chester and the University of Pennsylvania - also confirmed they'd purchased .xxx domains associated with their schools.

But three of the schools were prudish and refused to give it up to the Daily News and say what sites they had bought.

Ray Betzner, Temple University spokesman, confirmed the school had bought Temple.xxx, TempleUniversity.xxx and others, but he declined to disclose the "others."

"I don't want to say what they are because we don't want to give people ideas about what to gather up," he said.

Spokeswomen for Penn and Drexel used the same explanation for remaining tight-lipped, saying they didn't want to tip off online squatters to unprotected domains that could be associated with their respective schools.

But Kimberly Slattery, director of Web services for West Chester University, which reserved three names, said it'd be impossible for any school to cover every angle.

"You could go crazy trying to figure out all the different names we should or could be protecting," she said. "We tried to get the three West Chester is mainly associated with."

Some schools farther afield let their imaginations run wild. The University of Kansas, for example, said it had spent $3,000 to buy names, including KUnurses.xxx and KUgirls.xxx.

As of Dec. 21, more than 200,000 .xxx domains had been registered, according to Jocelyn Johnson, spokeswoman for ICM Registry, which operates the .xxx domain. Among those are Gay.xxx, which sold for $500,000, and shemales.xxx, which sold for $200,000.

It's hard to know exactly how many of those purchases were defensive moves, Johnson said. Before the .xxx domains went on sale to the general public on Dec. 6, they were made available to organizations with registered trademarks, like schools or Disney, for instance.

In the .com landscape, several people and entities have learned about defensive domain registration the hard way.

Until 2004, WhiteHouse.com was a porn site, and concerned citizens who intended to visit the official site, WhiteHouse.gov, got a big, naked surprise when they stumbled on the doppelgänger.

Recently, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich found himself the butt of jokes at www.NewtGingrich.com, which the liberal political-action committee American Bridge 21st Century had bought.

The folks at American Bridge programmed the site to redirect visitors to a host of unflattering Gingrich associations, including a video he filmed about global warming with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Type the same address into your browser a second time and get redirected to a different site, like the home page of mortgage giant Freddie Mac, for which Gingrich did consulting work.

But perhaps the most heinous example of online smoke and mirrors is of Republican Jane Corwin, a New York state assemblywoman who lost in a special election for New York's 26th Congressional District this year.

Corwin's official site, was janecorwin.com, but a strikingly realistic spoof site popped up at janecorwin.org. There, when visitors are asked to donate, they are told: "Together, we can make delicious soup from the bones of the poor." The site claims to be powered by "SmallAsianChildren," and the tabs at the top read "Heil Jane Corwin," "Surrender," "Grovel" and "Give me your money."

Given the foresight of area universities on the .xxx trend and the backlash some people and places have felt for not defensively registering, maybe some Philadelphia notables should get on the .xxx boat before it's too late.

For instance, Nutter.xxx is still available, as are QuestLove.xxx and BoyzIIMen.xxx.

Thankfully, PleaseTouch.xxx and PleaseTouchMuseum.xxx are reserved.