The future porn websites of American were sold at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Fort Lauderdale yesterday afternoon, with both normal ".com" suffixes and the newly released ".xxx" domain names up for auction.
The company hosting the auction, TRAFFIC, had listed 120 domain names to be auctioned off yesterday, although many of the final bids didn't pass the reserve prices.
Out of the 12 .xxx domains up for auction yesterday, the two top sellers were "personals.xxx" and "orgy.xxx," which each sold for $25,000.
Video of the event was streamed live online yesterday, although bids could be entered in-person or by phone only.
The lack of online bidding may have hurt the money power of the auction, as the CEO of ICM Registry, the Palm Beach Gardens-based company that originally started selling off the .xxx domain names, reportedly announced the day before the auction that "shemales.xxx" sold for $200,000.
The highest-priced domain grabbed at the auction yesterday was a combination of "movietheater.com" and "movietheatre.com," which sold for $45,000.
But let's focus on the porn here.
"Chatroom.xxx" sold for the third-highest price among the .xxx domains, setting the buyer back $10,000.
"Local.xxx" grabbed $6,000, "virtual.xxx" went for $5,000, "hotties.xxx" went for just $3,500, and "juicy.xxx" netted $2,500.
Apparently those sites aren't nearly as coveted as "shemales."
Some of the auctions didn't quite meet expectations.
"Cheese.com" failed to reach the $1 million reserve, and bidding for "dubai.com" didn't reach its reserve either, which was listed as being less than $4 million.
The .xxx domain names are available only from ICM Registry for those who meet certain levels of qualification -- meaning they're in the porn business -- although the floodgates open for just about anyone to buy one of the remaining domains on December 6.
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