Ricks Claims Most Domain Names

Within minutes of the announcement that Ricks College would become Brigham Young University-Idaho, Ricks officials started buying up Web domain names.

“It totaled up to about 36 names that we were going after, realizing there are far more variations we could have gone after,” said Robet Reed, Internet services manager for Ricks, which is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Reed did not get them all. So-called cybersquatters often try to buy popular domain names and then sell them for large sums of money.

“As far as we’re concerned for Ricks College, BYU-Idaho or whatever you want to call us now, we represent the church,” Reed said. “We want to make sure that there is nothing objectionable out there that might represent us using our name.”

If someone searching for the Ricks College home page types “Ricks.com” instead of “Ricks.edu,” they will find themselves at a pornographic site. Mormon.com once was a pornographic site until a member of the church bought and revamped it.

The domain name for the new BYU-Idaho Web site, set to be up some time next year, will be www.byui.edu, Reed said. But the process will be held up until the school is accredited.