Why Did Taylor Swift Buy TaylorSwift.Porn? [DETAILS]
In a smart move to protect her image, Taylor Swift has bought porn-sites with her name before they officially become available to the public. The purchase is part of a larger controversial practice called "domain squatting" and it just became a much bigger issue for celebrities and corporations.
To prevent misuse of her name and image by opportunistic purveyors of adult content, Taylor Swift's publicity team reportedly bought TaylorSwift.porn and TaylorSwift.adult before they became available to the public on June 1.
CNN reports that, "In 2011, the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers decided to expand the number of generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, such as .com and .net. There were 22 at that time and now there are over 547 new gTLDs on the Web, with new suffixes released every month."
Among those new gTLDs are some salacious options like .porn, .sucks, and .adult so ICANN is allowing celebrities and corporations (basically anyone with a brand or trademark to protect), to get first dibs on the more controversial gTLDs before they become available to any and everyone on June 1st.
Swift's decision to buy the web names is not the first time she has taken steps to protect her brand. Reports from earlier this year said she had applied to trademark use of the phrase "this sick beat" as well as a number of other lyrics from her album 1989.
