Taylor Swift Buys Porn Site Domains To Protect Image

American sweetheart Taylor Swift is now the legal owner of web addresses TaylorSwift.porn and TaylorSwift.adult, as her team purchased the domain names before Internet trolls could get a hold of them. The addresses are part of the public sale of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number, or ICANN, that will be launched on June 1.

Swift’s team swooped in to take advantage of ICANN’s “sunrise period,” in which a selected group of trademarked brands and public figures were given the opportunity to register some of the controversial domains before they are released to the public on June, CNN Money reported. ICANN is fully aware of the negative repercussions of the said domains, thus allowing the likes of Swift to minimize the possibility of internet trolls doing something pervy with the addresses bearing their name.

ICANN has famously won the right to expand the number of generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, in 2011 and has grown from 22 gTLDs to nearly 550 since January 2014, according to its statistics. “.porn” and “.adult” are only some of the new offerings that have been added to the common addresses such as .com, .org, and .net. Less controversial addresses like .healthcare, .deals, and .amsterdam will also be added.

According to Business Insider, while US Sen. Jay Rockefeller told ICANN that he thought releasing such gTLDs was a "little more than a predatory shakedown scheme" to get big names shell out money, ICANN insisted that descriptive domains will be beneficial to Internet users, as they would ensure that the users will arrive at their intended destination. Moreover, SVP of marketing at Safenames, a domain registrar and advisory firm for websites, Steve Miholovich said that it’s “very responsible,” adding that it could help parents monitor their children’s website visits.

Meanwhile, it has not been revealed exactly how much Swift’s team has purchased her newly owned web addresses, but it is speculated to be around $2,500. Other big time entrepreneurs have also bought the two controversial domain names, such as Richard Branson and the Stringfellows. Even Microsoft Office registered for Office.porn and Office.adult. The domain .sucks will also be available in June.

In a related note, the 25-year-old singer songwriter has been known to be business savvy. She previously registered five of her hit phrases from her 1989 album with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, specifically "Party like it's 1989," "this sick beat," "cause we never go out of style," "could show you incredible things" and "nice to meet you, where you been?” and had recently beat the paparazzi by posting her bikini photos on her Instagram so they could not sell it. Moreover, it is known to many how she bravely pulled out all her music from Spotify, believing that "piracy, file sharing and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically.”