Taylor Swift has snapped up the new website names TaylorSwift.porn and TaylorSwift.adult so that no one else will be able to use them against her and her signature brand of pop superstardom.
CNN Money reported Thursday that Swift is not the only one buying up unsavory domain names in addition to everyday extensions like .com, .net, and .org. Microsoft and other brand-conscious companies are also registering for the new, controversial domains, and are likely to leave them blank.
ICANN, the body that coordinates and governs the more than 500 website extensions now available, has announced that the new .porn, .adult, and .sucks extensions will go on sale to the general public on June 1. Before that date — in what is commonly referred to as the "sunrise period" — trademark holders are given the first shot at registering their websites.
ICANN hopes that as the Internet continues to grow, top-level domain extensions will help differentiate and organize content across the web. In addition to country codes like .us, .fr, and .ca, more descriptive extensions like .healthcare might help people understand a website before they visit it.
Of particular concern is the access children have to different parts of the web. Parental browser filters, for example, currently have a hard time keeping up with which .coms are appropriate. If all adult-only content is eventually put behind a .adult, .porn, or .xxx extension, then parental filters will be much more effective.
In the meantime, singer Swift wants to make sure no one can set up any type of website that could malign, impersonate, or parody her — or otherwise touch her reputation in anyway.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.