StartUp Podcast: Sex Dot Con (Season 6, Episode 2)

September 8, 2017 9:00 AM

Gary Kremen owned one of the most valuable domain names in the history of the internet. And then one day, he lost it in the most unusual way. For years, Gary fought to win back his domain "sex dot com." The legal battle transformed the way the courts treat virtual property. But in the end, was his lengthy and expensive crusade worth it?

Episode page

posted by radioamy (3 comments total)

While that was a wild ride, it made me actually wish it was an episode about the founding of Match.com.
posted by General Malaise at 12:08 PM on September 9, 2017

General Malaise, maybe this is what you are looking for.
posted by primethyme at 6:31 PM on September 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

it made me actually wish it was an episode about the founding of Match.com.

Me too. This bit:

GARY: So I got jobs.com and autos.com and housing.com.
AMY: And among this bunch of domains was sex.com.

And Match.com got to keep all of those other -- presumably also eventually very valuable -- domains when Kremen left. What happened to them? Did Match.com know what they were sitting on? Or did they let them lapse, or sell them off cheap, before they became aware of how much they were worth?

I'm finding it hard to Google history of these; maybe whois history tells more of the story. jobs.com went bankrupt and the domain was bought by monster.com's parent company for $800K in 2002; autos.com is part of Internet Brand's automotive portfolio, along with what looks like just about every car-brand forum site, although it's not clear when they acquired autos.com; housing.com is now an India real-estate site.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:15 AM on September 15, 2017