That new XXX TLD is going to cost you 209 dollars to register

I buy my fair share of domain names every year some I park, some I sell, and some I wrap a web site around to see what happens with it. I usually pay between 6.95 and 9.95 depending on what extension I want for the domain name. Reports are surfacing though that the new XXX TLD that comes out in December is going for 209 dollars to register the first year and 99 dollars to keep it every year afterwards. The 99 dollars alone is a huge increase over the annual fee for any other domain, and 209 just to register. This could get ugly fast, because coke.xxx and dietpepsiporn.xxx are serious domains that need to be registered by coke and pepsi so that they don’t have to deal with trademark infringement down the road. When it comes down to what the rest of the world will pay, 99 dollars a year according to GoDaddy.

I wonder if MichelleBachmanPorn.xxx and RickPerryPorn.xxx have been registered yet.

This could get to be expensive fast, and I have to question why GoDaddy is charging so much for a simple TLD. The defensive registrations alone are going to be expensive as all get out because every star, every politician, every company is going to need to be right into the Sunrise and Landrush sections of this deal and it is going to cost. From Mattel and Barbie through every cartoon character you can think of the defensive purchasing alone is going to rake in some serious dollars for GoDaddy, and indeed any other registrar out there. It has been a while since a new TLD has rolled out, and most people probably thought that it would be the usual going rate, but why does porn have to rate such a high registration fee?

Then we get to Hustler who does not want to pay the 209 dollar fee across their own trademarks for the XXX TLD. That would be a large chunk of change to pay out, so they are asking for an injunction at the court level that would have the registrar block people from registering names that resolve to viable trademarks without the 209 per website service fee.

Yes there is money to be made out there, and yes the consumption of adult material in America alone is estimated to be a 2.8 billion dollar industry, and a 4.9 billion worldwide. To get your heads around how much money GoDaddy is set to rake in, this statistic infographic from OnlineMBA.com should help fill that out, if they are even close to being right 12% of all web sites are pornographic in nature, that is a lot of sites at 209 dollars per pop. Add to that trademarks and companies, GoDaddy is going to have an awesome 4^th Quarter.