PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla., and CYPRUS – Barron Innovations, part of the multimedia adult conglomerate that operates PussyCash, ImLive and WebcamWiz, has acquired the Sex.xxx domain for $3 million. The multi-year registration is the largest single-domain sale processed to date by .XXX overseer ICM Registry.
The transaction, announced Thursday, also included more than 40 other premium domain names, bringing Barron’s total cash outlay to $5 million, according to an ICM spokesman.
Barron Innovations and related companies have “held [the] top position for most of [their] 15-year existence,” said ICM Director Stephen Winyard. “We are happy to have completed this transaction. The deal follows on from the ever-increasing flow of significant premium names sales we are achieving now that we are into our third year of operation. It tangibly reinforces the performance benefits of .XXX names for members of the industry.”
Barron spokesman Shay Efron said the company intends to place significant development resources” behind creating high-quality destination sites that will offer new possibilities to business partners. Website launches are expected later this year and in 2015.
“As part of a group which operates leading brands such as ImLive.com and WebcamWiz.com, we tracked the introduction of .XXX closely,” Efron said. “We have studied the performance of .XXX domains in terms of [search engine optimization] and conversion rates and decided to make a huge splash by acquiring the very best keyword generic names available. We evaluated Sex.xxx, the flagship domain, and decided it has the potential to become the leading brand in the entire adult industry, so it was an obvious part of a very large deal.”
ICM Chief Executive Officer Stuart Lawley told YNOT.com, “This deal has taken almost a year to put together, and the buyer conducted in-depth due diligence on the respective performance of .XXX names in SEO, conversion rates, bounce rates, etc., before making this decision to buy some of our premier names. The package included one resale which we brokered for GaySex.xxx on behalf of a third party to which we had previously sold the premium domain.
“We are, of course, delighted with the deal, which we see as hard-earned and undoubtedly ground breaking for any non .com TLD,” Lawley continued. “We are pleased that our hard efforts over the past three years enabled us to secure an order like this with a well-known, industry-leading group.”
Other domain names that were part of the deal include Cam.xxx, Phone.xxx and Black.xxx, all of which sold for six-figure prices, as well as Web.xxx, Market.xxx, Mate.xxx and Education.xxx.
“We look forward to enjoying the benefits of ICM’s Domain Matching Program, which gives .XXX holders an opportunity to secure matching domain names in .porn, .adult and .sex” if those domain spaces receive approval from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, Efron said. “And we would like to use this opportunity to thank Stephen [Winyard] and the rest of the ICM team, who made the negotiation process a very pleasant experience.”
