The people who control the internet have decided, in their near-infinite wisdom, to create a new domain type.  This one is .XXX, and there's no prize for guessing what that refers to.

As we all know, porn sites like to hijack well known names.  I'll never forget the day that I decided, while doing a technology demonstration in front of hundreds of people, to use the Office of the US President for my example.  I typed whitehouse.com by reflex, instead of the somewhat more correct whitehouse.gov.  It turned out that whitehouse.com was a porn site, as I and the hundreds of men and women watching soon discovered.  I apologize (again) to everyone who was there.

So, name hijacking on the new .XXX domains is an obvious problem.  To counter this, the Gnomes of the Net have declared a sunrise period of 52 days, which began yesterday, September 7, during which people can block use of their brand names.

And there's the rub.  They're only allowing you to block use of your name if it's a registered trademark.  If you're Microsoft, you can prevent a porn site using microsoft.xxx.  Although that would be ironic since micro and soft probably aren't at the forefront of desirable concepts when you're looking for porn.  But if, however, you want to block GaryCorby.xxx, just to pick a random example, then you can't do it.

I'm fairly sure the Gnomes haven't thought this through.  Maybe Hollywood celebrities trademark their names, but the vast majority of people who might get googled from time to time don't.    A porn site could register hundreds of mid-grade names and point them to the same salacious location.

So I'm stuck.  And so are you, if you want to block your name.