ICM Registry buys .sex gTLD for up to $3 million

ICM Registry, the .xxx domain name registry, may have paid as much as $3 million for the .sex gTLD

Internet Marketing Solutions Limited, the only other applicant for .sex, withdrew its application this week.

Word is that ICM forked out somewhere between $2 million and $3 million for exclusive rights to the string.

I hear it was a private deal, not an auction organized by a third party.

I wonder whether the price was affected by the revelation by ICANN earlier this month that it considers porn-related gTLD strings “sensitive” for no particular reason.

It’s quite low, considering that sex.com sold for $13 million and sex.xxx sold for $3 million just a couple of months ago.

ICM now is the only applicant for .sex, .porn and .adult. It plans to grandfather existing .xxx registrants into the new namespaces, assuming ICANN doesn’t throw a spanner in the works.

Domain Incite