Baby Needs a New Domain Name

How's this for thinking ahead? Shortly after baby's first footprints are made in the hospital, some parents are securing another kind of identity marker: an Internet domain name.

It's hard to know just how widespread the practice is, but the AP reports that parents are snapping up domain names from companies that charge about $9 and up a year for them. Some are setting up web sites right away to share photos and moments in their babies' live, but most are tucking them away for future use. They don't want someone else to buy the names and experience what Britney Spears did when her 11-month-old son's domain name was purchased by someone else first, writes the AP's Anick Jesdanun.

But what seems forward-thinking now could be quickly outdated. As Peter Grunwald, who owns a research firm specializing in kids and technology, tells the AP: "Given the pace of change on the Internet, it strikes me as a pretty impressive leap of faith that we're going to use exactly the same system and the same tools...15 to 20 years from today."

Other parents are taking the simpler step of setting up email accounts through web-based mail services so they can send emails and thank-you's in their babies' voices to family members and friends. One mom tells the AP she'll be saving all the messages for her kids to read when they get older.

So have you secured domain names for your babies or older kids?

LINK: Tots getting Internet identity at birth [AP via Yahoo! News] 

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