RSS

Contact us

Thursday 4 December 2008

Pound sold to highest bidder

Matthew Lynn on domain name sales

Plenty of people, it appears, just tap in a word and imagine it will take them to information they want. So, for example, the vodka company Russian Standard recently paid $3 million for vodka.com. Once the punters are there, you can start selling them anything you like. Haigh’s company, Moneyedge, registered £.com in 2000 and has been sitting on it ever since. Technically only two financial symbols can be used as domain names: the pound and the euro. The dollar sign can’t be used, which might reflect the fact that the internet was originally developed by the US Defense Department. ‘E.com’ is owned by a trading company in Holland which has no plans to sell. In that sense, £.com will be unique.

‘I just felt the time was right to sell it to someone and move on,’ said Haigh. ‘I really have no idea how much it might fetch. It’s a step into the darkness.’

In reality, national symbols don’t necessarily lead to great websites. UK.com is a tacky ad-filled site. So is greatbritain.com. Maybe Gordon Brown should snap them up as part of his drive to impose a definition of Britishness. Britain.com and England.com both take you to the LondonTown travel guide: not a bad site, but its hard sell on hotel bookings and theatre tickets is a bit like standing in Leicester Square on a rainy Tuesday in August. Scotland.com takes you to a commercial site, although a rather more refined one. In fact only Wales.com, among the home nations, leads you to a government-run site.

But surely £.com should encourage some bidding interest (we will of course post the actual sale price on www.spectator.co.uk). Sterling might have taken a beating on the currency markets recently but it’s still one of the world’s major currencies. There are only a few universally recognised symbols of wealth, and the pound is undoubtedly still one of them.

Maybe the Bank of England should buy it. After all, the Bank is charged with protecting the value of the currency, and it’s hard to see how the pound could be anything other than devalued by having £.com redirect you to one of Panama City’s finest banking establishments.

Or Stuart Wheeler? The multi-millionaire founder of the IG Index spread-betting company has spent a fortune fighting just about everything that comes out of Brussels. You think he’d be willing to stump up a few quid to keep the pound in British hands. Then again, if Frankfurt-based central bankers had a sense of humour — which of course they don’t — then the European Central Bank might put in a bid. Tap in £.com and it takes you to a home page extolling the virtues of the euro. There’s a prospect to encourage patriotic bidders.

More articles from: Matthew Lynn | this section

Print this article  |  Email to a friend  |  Permalink  |   Comments (3)

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Advertisement

Spectator Business | Apollo Magazine

Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms

Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP

All Articles and Content Copyright ©2008 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved