The next time you Google “University of Hawai‘i,” check to make sure the website ends in .edu.
The University of Hawai‘i is now one of many colleges and brands around the world to share its name with a pornographic website, one that could potentially harm the university’s image.
KITV4 News reported that on Jan. 2, the website universityofhawaii.xxx was up for bid on eBay.com at a starting price of $100,000.
As of last week, however, the website has been up and running. The site contains adult content with the title “University of Hawai‘i” on the front banner.
The University of Hawai‘i, KITV said, is a victim of cybersquatting, which occurs when someone not affiliated with an institution or company decides to buy a form of its Web address and in attempt to make money by selling it back.
The domain names such as UHbabes and UHhotties were purchased by the other UH school, the University of Houston in Texas in response to the x-rated suffixes.
The .xxx domains became available for purchase in early December last year, reported USA Today. These domains, said Business Insider, were sponsored and approved by the International Foundation for Online Responsibility (IFFOR) in an effort for Internet users to easily distinguish websites containing adult content.
While this new generic top-level domains (gTLD) was designed with good intentions, this will still not designate a shift for all pornographic websites to .xxx domains.
This does not seem to be a major concern to UH, as the system did not follow the suit of other college campuses that have purchased .xxx domains to conserve their schools’ clean image. CBS said that University of Kansas, for example, spent about $3,000 on .xxx domains: kugirls.xxx, kunurses.xxx, kansas.xxx, rockchalkjayhawk.xxx, jayhawks.xxx, among others.
Indiana University spent around $2,200 and purchased 11 names, which included hoosiers.xxx to keep the pornography industry from buying those domain names.
An Associated Press article said the university has no plans to put content on the purchased domains.
In an article from the Chicago Tribune, some universities are choosing not to buy .xxx websites, such as the University of Illinois.
The .xxx sufixxes affected more than just universities, but also high schools including Punahou Schools and Kamehameha Schools, with name variations available for purchase.
Like these campuses, the University of Hawai‘i may not be too concerned about its system’s reputation, as the public should already be aware that websites that end in .xxx are not official sites for education; most of the websites for colleges end with the .edu top-level domain.
Colleges that purchase .xxx domains are taking an “it’s better to be safe than sorry” approach to this situation. By purchasing the domains, colleges can save thousands of dollars in the long haul by avoiding potential legal disputes.
Rather than being coerced to purchase the website, however, the UH system should at the very least make it be known on its Web pages that it has no affiliation to the .xxx website.
KITV reported that the user on eBay is still putting up auctions for other suggestive website addresses that are selling for $50,000.
If no action is taken by the UH system or other campuses facing this problem, the cybersquatting could give more power to the adult content industry.
The possibilities are endless, and soon enough, other websites may be targeted for trademark abuse.
Eventually, .xxx domains will become bothersome, and they will require more purchasing to counteract the effects of cybersquatting.
The view we take is written by the editors of the Kapi’o. We welcome all responses to this subject. Email “Letter to the Editor” at kapio@hawaii.edu