Schools in America are so worried about their reputations being tarred by pornographers that they are becoming the best customers of the .xxx domain.

The first to snap up their .xxx domain names were the University of Missouri and Washington University to avoid their schools being linked to porn websites.

According to experts this is part of a defensive plan to keep names like washu.xxx out of the wrong hands, owned by the universities and never seen again.

“We don’t want someone coming across our trademark on a porn site. God only knows what they’d come up with,” said Terry Robb, director of information technology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, which also has registered missouri.xxx and missouritigers.xxx.

The .xxx domain will be launched in the next year, however any organisation that is trade marked will have the opportunity to set aside their names to protect companies from cyber squatters.

Many organisations are worried that their trademarks could end up linked with porn sites.

It costs around $200 per name for universities and other organisations to own each .xxx site linked with their name.

However many organisations see this expense necessary and money well spent in the long run.

Many schools feel its better to be safe than sorry, $200 being nothing compared with what a .xxx domain could do to a reputation.