Beginning September 7, 2011 trademark owners will have six weeks to block their trademarks from .XXX registration. Contact your domain registrar to initiate this process.
Later this year, anyone will be able to register domain names with the new .xxx gTLD (generic top level domain). But beginning September 7, 2011 through October 28, 2011 trademark owners will have the right to block their trademarks from .xxx registration. By paying a $225 fee to a registrar, a trademark owner can have the .xxx domain associated with its trademark removed from the pool of domain names available for registration for ten years and the WHOIS information will list standard registry information. Persons who visit the blocked .xxx domain will see an informational page indicating the status of the domain name as not available for registration. Providing an informational page for the blocked domain should prevent “synthetic DNS” or non-DNS resolution systems from hi-jacking queries to these domain names.
Businesses with valuable brands and trademarks, those who rely on Internet searches utilizing their name to direct users to their websites, e-commerce and Internet based businesses, religious, non-profit and political organizations, should consider blocking their trademarks from .xxx registration. Adult Internet businesses have some of the highest usage and highest search engine rankings on the Internet. This means that businesses and organizations who rely on the Internet and search engine optimization to acquire customers and promote their brands could shortly find that their homepage is ranked with or below a corresponding .xxx website on searches for their name. For example, http://www.”mybusiness”.xxx could eventually be a first page search result or even a higher ranking search result for the term “my business” than your primary http://www.”mybusiness”.com home page. Blocking .xxx registration will prevent this possibility.
Here is the procedural schedule for .xxx registration:
Sunrise A – September 7, 2011 to October 28, 20111
During this period, adult businesses with verifiable trademark rights can register .xxx domains.
Sunrise B – September 7, 2011 to October 28, 20111
During this period, non-adult businesses with verifiable trademark rights can block their trademarks from registration as .xxx domains.
Quiet Period – October 29, 2011 to November 7, 2011
Landrush – November 8, 2011 to November 25, 2011
During this period adult businesses bid at auction to purchase unclaimed .xxx gTLDs.
Quiet Period – November 9, 2011 to December 6, 2011
General Availability – December 6, 2011
After this date .xxx gTLDs are available to anyone who wants to purchase.
The Law of Business 