Matthew Lynn on domain name sales
In Amsterdam, on the afternoon of 26 June, the pound is finally being sold off. No, Gordon Brown hasn’t decided to repeat his famous trick of dumping a chunk of the nation’s gold reserves at the nadir of the bullion market. Nor has Mervyn King decided the outlook for the British economy is now so grim he might as well sell what he can before taking himself off to Grand Cayman.
Instead, ‘£.com’ is up for sale. The winner of the auction for what its owners, with a lively sense of hyperbole describe as the ‘World’s Most Exclusive Financial Domain’, will be able to use the £ sign for anything they like. Tap it into your browser, and you could be sold insurance or unit trusts, or be redirected to the site of one of the flashier hedge funds.
‘It’s hard to speculate who might want to own it,’ said Richard Haigh, whose company owns the internet rights to the symbol.
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