The infamous and controversial domain Sex.com has officially been sold to Boston-based Escom LLC for a reported $14 million, XBiz has learned. Sex.com owner Gary Kremen was unavailable for comment, but a source from Kremen’s company, Grant Media, told XBiz that sales for the famous domain name will still be handled through Grant Media’s San Francisco offices.
While other terms of the acquisition remain unknown, XBiz was able to locate information on the deal through a company called InternetRealEstate.com, which shares office space in Boston with Domain Name Acquisition Group (DNAG), a company that was involved in a lawsuit surrounding the Sex.com domain in September.
InternetRealEstate.com is owned by Internet Real Estate Group LLC Partners, which has been involved in the acquisition, development and sale of domain names like Beer.com for $7 million, Telephone.com for $2 million, Shop.com for $3.5 million, and others such as Computer.com, College.com, Diamond.com, Timeshares.com and CreditCard.com.
A principal of InternetRealEstate.com told XBiz that his company has nothing to do with Escom and has no affiliations with DNAG either, although the company President Andrew Miller and CEO Peter Hubshman were both named as defendants in the DNAG/Sex.com lawsuit and both names appear on the InternetRealEstate.com website.
InternetRealEstate.com’s former name, Deal Jam LLC, also was named in the Sex.com lawsuit, before it became known as Internet Real Estate Group.
The company principal said that while he was aware of the Sex.com sale to Escom, he denied any affiliations between InternetRealEstate.com and the new owner of the Sex.com domain name.
Prior to learning of the sale of Sex.com, numerous adult industry message board postings had already begun speculating on the sale after noticing the radical change in the appearance of the Sex.com website. On the homepage of the updated website, the new owners refer to the site as “the new Sex.com,†and the appearance is radically different from the former site. The site is copyrighted by Escom.
Kremen has been shopping around the Sex.com domain for the past year. In previous interviews with XBiz, he has expressed interest in getting out of the adult business.
The Sex.net domain is still registered under Kremen’s Grant Media company.
A class action lawsuit was filed in US District Court against Google alleging breach of contract, negligence, unjust enrichment, and unfair business practices-all involving charges of click fraud. Click Defense Inc, a click fraud protection firm, filed the suit in California in the name of an unknown number of plaintiffs for an amount not less than $5 million.
Of course, one should always consider the plaintiff in any suit presented. The publicity gained through this type of action is worth its weight in gold–especially to a click fraud business whose bread and butter is identifying click fraud and getting money back for its clients.
Click fraud is the term used in the Internet search industry to describe the practice of clicking on search advertisements to run up the costs on advertisers.
Companies buy an advertisement through Google’s AdWords program, whereby certain keywords are purchased in order to appear in the sponsored links section of the search engine’s results page.
Advertisers bid upon the search terms with the top spot going to the top bidder. Once the advertisement is in place, advertisers pay a fee to the search engine each time the ad is clicked by a searcher.
Click fraud, estimated by some to be as high as 20% of all clicks, is caused by those with a vested interest using software that clicks on the ad hundreds or thousands of times to either drain the advertising budget of a rival company, or create revenue for the seller of the ad space.
Colorado-based Click Defense, a company that specializing in procuring rebates for advertisers, says the average cost per click is 50 cents, but prime search engine real estate can go for as much as $100. Disputing the 20% estimations, Click Defense alleges that click fraud on Google is as high as 38%.
The lawsuit claims that since 99% of Google’s revenue comes from advertising, Google has a huge financial interest in doing little about the instance of fraudulent clicks and criticizes the search giant for failure to disclose its own estimate of the number of fraudulent clicks.
The suit fall just short of accusing Google of physically performing the click fraud itself. The most visible allegation is the charge of negligence on the part of Google, claiming that Google isn’t doing enough to prevent the problem.
Click Defense argues that the same software Google uses to track the number of clicks on an advertisement and then bill advertisers could be used to investigate and identify instances of click fraud.
Google’s terms of use with AdWords promises a refund in any event of identifiable click fraud. According to Google’s 2005 Annual Report, click fraud is a major concern of the search engine.
“If we fail to detect click-through fraud, we could lose the confidence of our advertisers, thereby causing our business to suffer,” as stated in the report.
Google, who reported a first quarter net profit of $1.3 billion, is dismissing the claims of Click Defense.
“We believe the suit is without merit and we will defend ourselves against it vigorously,” a Google spokesman told Reuters.
It is important to note that Click Defense Inc. makes money by promising protection against click fraud and procuring refunds for client advertisers. The plaintiff in this lawsuit seems especially suspect considering the nature of the business it is in.
That Click Defense is accusing Google of having a financial interest in not detecting click fraud is a little bit funny as Click Defense has a definite financial interest in nailing Google for it.
A jury has been demanded to investigate the claims and they will ultimately decide, if the case goes to trial, whether there is sufficient evidence of the charges brought against Google.
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Google is preparing to introduce an electronic payment system later this year. This would mean a tough competition to PayPal, the present industry leader.
The Wall Street Journal reported Google’s plans on its Web site last Friday, citing sources familiar with the Mountain View-based company’s plans. The Journal did not provide any details about Google’s strategy.
More information could be found at Wall Street Journol