Could www.Vote.Republican Be a Porn Site Next Year?
By Ben Terris
August 26, 2013 | 6:00 a.m.
The first stage of the Internet gold rush is upon us. This means, of course, that speculators are already quibbling over property rights.
And the Republican Party is right in the thick of it.
Within the next year, the Internet is set to expand. Instead of just ending website URLs with the 20 or so generic domains (.com, .biz, .net, .org, etc.), or the about 200 country code domains (.us, .uk, .de, .cc), people will have the option of nearly 1,500 new endings (.bible, .tattoo, .WTF, .sucks, .porn). Last year, hundreds of people and businesses (including Google, Amazon, Nike, and many others) applied for these so-called top-level domains for various reasons. Some want to build out their brand; others want to keep competitors from getting their hands on them; and still others just want to make a profit by selling domains to third parties.
United TLD Holdco is a group in this last category. It has put in the $185,000 application fee for 26 different top-level domains, including .Ninja, .Actor, .Social, .Democrat, and .Republican. It's only the last one of these that has the Republican Party up in arms.
"It's not appropriate for them to run something that is called .Republican," says Chris Jankowski, the president of the Republican State Leadership Committee. "Part of the new Internet is about making sure the people who have the interest in the brand, in this case political parties, not just crass commercial interest
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http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/could-www-vote-republican-be-a-porn-site-next-year-20130826
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