A German site that was until this week purporting to sell the
domain name Sex.com has admitted that it never actually had the
rights to sell the name. The domain name is one of the most
valuable on the internet and its asking price was $85 million.25 Jan 2001
Domshop.de admitted this week that it had not been licensed by the owner, Gary Kremen of San Francisco, to sell the name, contrary to its earlier claims.
Kremen, who recently won the name in a US court decision, has said he has no plans to sell the name. Domshop.de issued a statement saying “we would have liked to sell sex.com but unfortunately the real owner does not want to sell.”
Kremen registered the name in 1994 but lost it the following year to an ex-convict, Stephen Cohen, after Cohen sent a forged letter of transfer to Network Solutions, the domain registrar. Cohen then ran a highly profitable porn portal until late last year when a court awarded Kremen the return of the domain name having found that the forged signature on the letter to Network Solutions misspelled Kremen’s name.