Wallstreet.com sale may top that of Porn.com

[gonzo]

The website address Wallstreet.com is set to go on sale today in an auction that is expected to rival the record sale price fetched by Porn.com.

Wallstreet.com will go under the hammer with an opening bid range of $1m-$5m at Moniker.com, a domain name auctioneer based in Florida.

Monte Cahn, the group's chief executive, told Bloomberg the final price may exceed the $9.5m paid earlier this year for Porn.com.

The sale of Porn.com in March to MXN, an internet media and investment firm, was the largest all-cash domain transaction in history. It is the second largest domain sale overall after Sex.com, which reportedly sold for $12m in cash and stock during a private sale in January 2005.

The auction for Porn.com was staged in Las Vegas, with bidding fetching initial offers in the range of $7m, according to Mr Cahn.

Wallstreet.com was set up in September 1994 and sold to a Caribbean-based casino for $1m in 1999 – who ran it as a gambling site, allowing people to place bets on the stock market's movements. According to Mr Cahn, the casino decided to sell it on four years ago for $2.3m, after the tech bubble burst.

Mr Cahn said Wallstreet.com is being put forward for auction by a European internet entrepreneur and two other investors, whom he declined to name.
Companies currently paying for the 'keywords' Wall Street include the Wall Street Journal and Paddy Power. This means that, for example, the Wall Street Journal will pay Google to include its website in the list of those it provides for anyone searching for the words 'Wall Street'.