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iPhone.com Domain Sold to Apple for Seven Figures

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 at 1:30 PM - by

Apple has bought the domain, iPhone.com, from businessman Michael Kovatch in one of the largest domain name sales in history, according to DomainTool blogger and CEO of Name Intelligence Jay Westerdal on Monday.

The sale was estimated at more than $US1M.

Michael Kovatch acquired the domain name in 1995 and has been using it ever since in his business. The active use in his business over the last 12 years gives him the right to keep the domain name. Even though traffic to his site has skyrocketed, Mr Kovatch apparently decided to take Apple's cash rather than exploit the (now) accidental domain naming.

For awhile, he actually considered not selling, but finally relented. Mr. Westerdal, who has a distinguished history in Internet Domain technology, wrote, "It is extremely critical that Apple own the domain. The headaches would have just compounded had they not owned the domain."

As a result, Mr. Kovatch's estimated seven digit sale is one of the biggest in Internet history.

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Dreadnought said:

member since 01 Jan 2005 with 162 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue Jul 03, 2007 2:08 pm

Good for both of them - Apple needed the site, but Kovatch was a legitimate user. No bullying, no squatting - Apple paid a fair amount for an important domain that someone else legitimately owned.

BTW - www.iphone.com now redirects to www.apple.com/iphone. Quick work!

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A guest said: (hide)

Tue Jul 03, 2007 4:09 pm

Ouch, too bad Apple didn't try to get the domain six months ago, or longer.......... or perhaps they did, and couldn't get a deal until now.

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Terrin said:

member since 29 Jan 2006 with 414 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue Jul 03, 2007 9:49 pm

Wasted money. If I want to learn about the iPhone. I am typing in Apple.com. I suspect most people would.

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed Jul 04, 2007 8:59 am

Terrin wrote:
Wasted money. If I want to learn about the iPhone. I am typing in Apple.com. I suspect most people would.

Yeah, but if half a million people bought the iPhone on the first day, and 10% of them typed in "iphone" into their browser address bar, then 50,000 BUYERS would have gone to the wrong site on the first day!

Don't underestimate it... I was in the Chicago Michigan Ave store yesterday and a sales person had to remove people from line that didn't want to transfer over to AT&T's network. As in "Anybody who wants to buy an iPhone, but doesn't want AT&T phone service, please step out of line."

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A guest said: (hide)

Thu May 08, 2008 7:22 pm

Here is a video interview with Micheal where he explains how acquired iPhone.com:

http://www.thinkingserious.com/2008/05/07/the-story-behind-iphonecom/

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