RTFA: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/12/what-recessio…

Privately-owned PriveCo, which specializes in retailing “embarrassing” products online, has paid $1 million for the acquisition of the domain name vibrators.com (a little NSFW).

PriveCo began selling private things out of a spare bedroom on a website called ShopInPrivate.com back in 1998, and has steadily grown to an operation with 12 separate retail sites whose warehouse ships 1500+ packages per week.

Erm, FYI… Seems there’s still a booming market for domain names.

RTFA: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7331042.stm

A US man has sold the domain name pizza.com for $2.6million £1.3m – after maintaining the site for just $20 a year since 1994.

Chris Clark, 43, accepted the offer from an anonymous bidder after a week-long online auction.

“Its crazy, its just crazy,” Mr Clark, who lives in North Potomac, Maryland, was quoted as saying by the Baltimore Sun newspaper.

“It will make a significant difference in my life, for sure,” he added.

Regret

Mr Clark registered the domain name in 1994, when the world wide web was just starting.

He had hoped that pizza.com would help to get a contract with a pizza firm for his consulting company.

He sold his business in 2000, but kept paying the $20 annual fees for maintaining the domain, which he also used to sell advertisements.

In January, Mr Clark decided to sell it after hearing that another domain – Vodka.com – was sold for $3m in 2006.

“I thought, Why dont I just try to see what the level of interest is?” Mr Clark said.

“If someones willing to pay that much for Vodka.com, maybe theres more interest in pizza.com.”

The online auction was launched on 27 March. The first bid was $100, jumping to $2.6m a week later.