January 20, 2006 | The Biz

Sex.com sells for $14M

As most men will tell you, sex doesn't always come cheap. It's especially expensive, however, when there's a dot-com attached to it. Boston-based company Escom LLC found that out recently, according to XBiz, which reports that it has purchased the controversial domain Sex.com for a whopping $14 million.

Sure enough, the homepage at Sex.com has had a makeover! Visitors to the hetero-centric website are greeted with a note announcing "The new Sex.com," as well as an Escom copyright across the bottom of the page.

The sex.com domain was the prize in a legal fight between its rightful owner, Gary Kremen, and  Stephen Michael Cohen, who in 2001 was found guilty of fraud and forgery for sneakily having the domain transferred to himself way back in 1995. Cohen was arrested in Mexico last fall and handed over to US authorities.

While terms of the sale have not been officially released, XBiz says that Sex.com is still registered under Kremen's San Francisco-based company, Grant Media, which a source says will continue to handle sales for the famous domain.

Though details of the deal are private, XBiz got its insider info from   InternetRealEstate.com, which shares office space with Domain Name Acquistion Group (DNAG), a company involved in (yet another) Sex.com lawsuit last fall.

   

XBiz implies that there is something overly cozy about the deal but we cannot for the life of us understanding the relationships between the various companies named in the article. If it sounds like a corporate soap opera, that's because it is! And as with your favorite soap, it's best to just sit back and watch the drama unfold.

• Sex.com sold to Escom LLC For $14M [XBiz]