Sex for sale - sex.com that is

Stuart Corner
Friday, 02 July 2010 07:48

IT Industry - Deals

What is quite probably the world's most valuable domain name, sex.com is up for sale. A price well in excess of $US10 million is likely.

Online domain marketplace and domain name broker Sedo says it has entered into an agreement with current owner, Escom, to privately broker the sale of sex.com and two related trademark registrations with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The name was originally to be auctioned in March. According to a Reuters report at that time Escom had acquired the domain name in 2006 from Gary Kremen, founder of dating website Match.com and chief executive of Grant Media who had registered the sex.com domain name in 1994.

Reuters said: DOM Partners LLC, a New Jersey lender had backed Escom's purchase for a reported $US14m  and was foreclosing on the loan because Escom had been in default on repayments for more than a year.

Apart from the Sex.com, sale, the current record price for a domain name sale is believed to be just short of $US10m paid in March 2008 for fund.com. Prior to that it was, according to Guiness World Records, held by business.com which went for $US7.5m back in 1999.

According to Wikepedia, citing Guinness World Records and MSNBC in 2004, the most expensive domain name sales on record were: Business.com for $US7.5m in December 1999; AsSeenOnTv.com for $US5.1m in January 2000; Altavista.com for $US3.3m in August 1998; Wine.com for $US2.9m in September 1999; CreditCards.com for $US2.75m in July 2004; Autos.com for $US2.2m in December 1999. More recently Bank.ht went for for $US1.4m in March 2010 and Inn.im for $US1.8m in December 2009.