The Highest Paid Domain Name

Did you know that the highest price paid for a domain name was $13,000,00 dollars? Can you guess what the website domain name?

If you guessed Sex.com, you'd be right.

In October 2010, Clover Holdings Limited purchased the domain after the previous owner went bankrupt. Official registration and proof of ownership is shown here in the WhoIs record:

Sex.com has had a strange up and down history (no pun intended).

In 1994, the founder of Match.com, Gary Kremen, acquired the domain only to lose it in a fraud scandal. Stephen Cohen faked documents to Internet registrar Network Solutions to transfer the domain to himself in 1996. After gaining control, Cohen used the domain as an advertisement site that produced a high volume of Internet traffic believed to be in the tens of millions of hits a day. It is said that the revenue generated from click through ad proceeds approached $500,000 a month.

Kremen sued, which led to a $65 million verdict in his favor and forced transfer of ownership of Sex.com back to him. Cohen would later flee the country and be on the run for years, where he would be later arrested in his lavish estate home by Mexican authorities in Tijuana, just south of San Diego, California.

In 2006 Kremen decided to sell Sex.com and it was sold to private company Escom LLC at $11.5 million dollars. Escom however would later announce bankruptcy and would be forced to sell Sex.com in October 2010 for $13 million. Internet domain specialist, Sedo.com brokered the deal.

About Kerry Kobashi

Kerry is the founder of KerryOnWorld. He lives in Silicon Valley and has worked as an engineer and project manager. He owns Kobashi Computing a consulting company.