A Mommy Story

In surfing the news this morning, I came across this article. It seems the new “trend” is for parents to purchase their child’s name as a domain name as soon as they’re born. Some parents go so far as checking that the domain is available before deciding on a name for their child.

Is this really a big deal? I’m not sure how I feel about it. I can see wanting to guarantee your child could have their own website in the future without being CaydenSmith47.com (come on, you know David will be a rare name by that point). The article makes a good point that a personal website could work as a digital identity to centralize a person’s social networks, making it easier to manage all of your contacts and having one site for everyone to find you. But who knows if the current set-up of the Internet will be the same in 18 years?

On the other hand, I worry about having a site with my child’s full name. There are predator concerns, especially when first and last name are displayed, and in many cases, a simple WhoIs look up can reveal an address, too. It’s essentially a big “here I am!” for those with less than pure intentions. The counter point is that many of us already have blogs, and use our child’s real first name, so someone could still find us. However, it would still be more difficult to find us when you have to go through the trouble of discovering last names and locations.

For now, I don’t really see the need to have a domain for each of my daughters. They have very unique names (if you include their last names), so I don’t worry about another Cordelia *** or Miranda *** snapping up their domains. Plus, while it’s only a small amount, I don’t want to pay those renewal fees every year for an unused site.

I say unused site because if I did have their domains, I wouldn’t be using them. I don’t like the idea of everyone having access to their full names, pictures, and address. When they’re adults, they’re free to do as they please. There is no such thing as true anonymity on the ‘net, and I know I’m taking some risk in showing their pictures and using their names on this blog, but I don’t share everything in an effort to provide a little security. What people see here is about as much as someone could learn if they were to see us out in public. Especially Cordy’s name, as I tend to yell it over and over as she runs away from me.

For now, buying domains for my children is not a pressing issue, but I can see why some people would want to do it. What do you think? Have you bought your child’s domain name? Would you consider doing it? Why or why not?

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