The University now owns a number of adult web addresses.

On Dec. 6, the University bought 21 domain names registered under the new “.xxx” suffix — an alternative to the more common .com and .org suffixes — that was created to distinguish between pornographic sites and others on the Internet. The University’ decided to purchase these domain names to protect the University from affiliations with pornographic websites, according to University officials.

University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said the University, like many other schools around the country, decided to buy .xxx domain names for University-associated terms like “MGoBlue” to protect the school's name from exploitation.

“In one way it’s kind of a routine step, but a very important one,” Fitzgerald said. “We think that in order to take the right steps to protect the reputation and the good name of the University, (we) kind of look at it as a bit of an insurance policy on the Internet.”

The .xxx domain names became available for purchase last Tuesday, the same day the University filed for a number of the names it ultimately procured.

“By opening up this new sort of new section of the Internet, if you will, it kind of reopens the whole naming convention,” Fitzgerald said. “So that’s the reason that we took these sort of additional steps, just to protect the reputation of the University.”

The University acquired the domain names in two phases. The first was in October, when the University and other corporations were given the opportunity to buy the domain names of phrases for which they had registered trademarks as of Sept. 1, 2011. At that time, the University acquired 14 names at the price of $200 per name for a 10-year period. Some of these included wolverines.xxx, mgoblue.xxx and michigandifference.xxx.

On Tuesday, the University had the opportunity to bid on domain names for which no registered trademark exists. In this phase, the University purchased an additional seven names such as umich.xxx and leadersandbest.xxx. These were purchased at the cost of $99 each for a one-year period.

Fitzgerald said while he is unaware if a decision has officially been made as to whether or not the University will renew the one-year holds on the websites, he believes it most likely will.

He added that the University does not plan on using these domain names for any purpose.

“The University has absolutely no intention of creating websites in this new .xxx domain,” Fitzgerald said.

The University owns a total of 470 domain names, but 50 of those names only protect the institution from being used by another entity. For example, the University owns michigandifference.org, michigandifference.com and michigandifference.net, but only michigandifference.org is a functional website. The others direct users to the website. According to Fitzgerald, this avoids confusion for users deciding which website to visit to find University-affiliated content.

A number of universities in Michigan have also taken similar precautionary measures. Central Michigan University purchased three domain names, and other universities around the country have also followed suit.

Michigan State University chose not to buy any .xxx domain names and instead plans to closely monitor the use of .xxx websites under the university's name.

MSU spokesman Kent Cassella told the Detroit Free Press there are too many potential domain names for the school to buy, so it doesn't make sense financially for MSU to buy them. Should MSU’s legal copyrights be infringed upon, the school would take legal action, according the Detroit Free Press.

While Fitzgerald acknowledged that the University cannot protect every name, he said the decision was the right call financially.

“It was the University’s judgment that these costs were reasonable, and (it) just seemed to make sense to go ahead and secure those names,” he said.