Million-dollar Domains

[Swiss Miss]

Vodka.com domain sells for $3 million

By Reuters
http://news.com.com/Vodka.com+domain+sells+for+3+million/2100-1030_3-6144214.html

Story last modified Fri Dec 15 13:26:45 PST 2006

The billionaire Russian entrepreneur behind Russia's biggest vodka maker has paid $3 million to acquire the vodka.com domain, part of a bid to expand into the U.S. market, a broker said on Thursday.

Sedo.com, the Web domain brokering unit that is part of Germany's United Internet AG, said it had acted as the sales agent in the deal.
Conglomerate Russian Standard, controlled by Roustam Tariko, paid $3 million to an undisclosed seller in a deal completed December 4, according to a Sedo.com spokesman. A New York-based spokeswoman for Russian Standard confirmed the $3 million price tag.
Russian Standard entered the U.S. market in September 2005 with its Imperia brand. The recipe for Imperia is said to have been discovered by 19th century Russian scientist Dimitri Mendeleev, inventor of chemistry's periodic table of elements.
Russian Standard controls not only two-thirds of the sales of premium vodka in Russia, but also owns Russian Standard Bank, the country's largest private bank.
Vodka.com's price tag is among the highest ever revealed for a generic Web domain. In May, diamond.com reportedly sold for $7.5 million to jewelry retailer Ice.com. Business.com sold for $7.5 million in 1999.
Earlier this year, a source told Reuters that Sex.com had sold for around $12 million to a Boston-based company called Escom LLC, although the exact figure has never been disclosed.

Story Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

Martin, you should really look into purchasing that Sex.com. You'd be way cooler than you already are!

[DansDarkSide]

Wow I knew Big name domains sold for alot but I was think like in the thousands not millions.....wow.

[RadioactiveMan]

Even those gargantuan sums are nothing compared to the gazillion dollars Google put out for Youtube!

ICANN needs to step in and do something. Two million domains is a pretty good sized chunk of the web.

Alarm bells ringing over domain registrar, RegisterFly.com
Monday 19th February, 2007: Up to two million domain names, including many with associated Web sites, are at risk over the apparent failure of ICANN-accredited domain registrar, RegisterFly.com.

The company in recent weeks is reportedly almost dysfunctional as customers scramble to register, renew or transfer names. RegisterFly.com's support systems appear to be down, or completely overwhelmed. It appears all domain names with the registrar are locked, preventing clients transferring, or even updating them. Attempts to change the status of domains are being overridden by the registrar.

Registrars are required to provide owners with authorization codes which are required in transferring to other registrars. These are normally displayed in clients' accounts, which are accessed by private login and password codes. It appears however RegisterFly.com has stopped displaying the codes. Calls to the various telephone numbers nominated for sales, technical support, and billing enquiries are going unanswered. Emails are not being responded to, and the registrar's online support system appears to be unmanned or so under-resourced it is giving that impression. The company has recently introduced a new fax support system. However faxes are going unanswered as well.

Customers attempting to renew domains are receiving emails saying their renewals have failed, without any other information or explanation. In some cases attempts to subscribe to other services are unsuccessful with online messages indicating there is a problem with their credit card, or payment is denied. On checking with their credit card provider they are sometimes finding charges have in fact gone through. RegisterFly.com uses a security certificate to encrypt data during transmission. Pop-up prompts now appearing on its site however are notifying site users that the security certificate, which had 12 months duration, expired on Saturday.

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