ABC Namebank - The San Francisco Chronicle: ICANN or I... -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 7/5/1999
Last Visited: 5/9/2002
LET THE BIDDING BEGIN: The domain-name business has been good to Alexis Rosen.Rosen recently sold the rights to Mall.com, which he acquired for pocket change in 1992, to an online shopping portal in Austin, Texas, for at least $250,000.
"I didn't really plan to sell it, but I got an incredible offer," said Rosen, founder of Panix of New York, one of the first Internet service providers.
Rosen also is one of the lucky cybersquatters.While other individuals have been either sued or vilified by corporations over the rights to Web addresses with trademarked names, Rosen made a small fortune because he bought the rights to a generic title.
"Perhaps I had a foolish notion that the Net was for educational --not commercial -- purposes," Rosen said."If I was in this for the money, I could have registered several thousand (well-known domain) names and made $500 million."
For now, he'll settle for a healthy quarter-million dollars.
BIGGER AIN'T BEAUTIFUL: The final chapter in Atbigger.net's Shakespearean tragedy is expected to unfold tomorrow in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Jose, and no one will be the richer or wiser.