As I previously reported, Sex.com will be up for auction at the law offices of Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf, LLP, 156 West 56th Street, New York, New York on March 18, 2010 at 11 am. The auction is a result of a foreclosure, a few years after the 2006 sale, which was reported (but never confirmed) to be in the ballpark of $14 million.

At the time of my initial article, neither the auction house nor the law firm representing the lender would confirm the opening price/minimum bid for the auction, although it was stated that a $1,000,000 certified check would be required to bid. 

I was just informed by Richard Maltz of Maltz Auctions that there will be no reserve price for the Sex.com auction. Registered bidders will be permitted to bid online or in person at the Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf, LLP offices. In addition, Maltz added, “the secured party does reserve the right to bid under the law.”

Without a reserve price set, I would expect several bidders to participate in this landmark auction. Full auction details, including the terms and conditions (pdf) of the auction are available on the Maltz Auctions website.

IDN Tools and ElliotsBlog.com are co-sponsoring a IDN domain contest beginning today and ending in two weeks from today. All you have to do to win is register the IDN domain name with the highest footprint (explained below) and you will win $150. The second place winner will receive $100, and the third place winner will receive $50.

The domain’s footprint = average CPC x Google exact match search term (as determined by Google Adwords Keyword Tool as of 9 a.m. on the contest end date). Here is an example of how the highest footprint will be determined: ฟรี.com (Free.com in Thai).  The broad global monthly search volume is 7,480,000; and the exact global monthly search volume is 2,900 x $0.43 (CPC) = 1,247 (footprint).

Here are the contest rules:

• All submissions are FREE
• Submissions must be made in the comments section of this post announcing the contest
• Dot com submissions only
• IDN name submissions only (must have a real punycode equivalent)
• Fresh hand registered submissions only (no use of Snapnames or a drop catcher, handreg must have been made during the contest period)
• Contest ends at 9 a.m. (EST) on Thursday, March 25th – All submissions must be time stamped by this time or they will not count.
• No trademark names

*Rules subject to interpretation by consensus of Me (Elliot) and the IDNTools team (Gary Males and Aaron Krawitz).  The top 3 domain names with the highest footprint will be the winners. Although someone can submit as many entries as they would like, a person is only eligible for one prize. In the event of a tie, the prize will be split between the co-winners.

To determine the CPC, visit the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and use the dropdown “Choose Columns to Display” you can display CPC easily without having an Adwords account.  You can also see the Google Exact Match Global search volume by using the Keyword Tool.

As you may have already noticed, I am happy to announce that Name.com has made an advertising commitment on my blog. I’ve heard a number of positive things about Name.com, especially working with the company, and now I have the chance to do so.

Name.com offers a number of great products and services for domain investors, some of which have been previously mentioned and discussed on my blog.

- NameSafe – This third-factor authentication works with two different styles of fobs (keychain and credit card style) as well as a host of mobile phones (m.verisign.com). For customers who want an extra level of protection for their account, this third-factor authentication option provides the needed level of account security. I use a keyfob for my Paypal account, and I think it’s a great security feature.

- Geo Domains Search – Long tail geodomain names are popular among local businesses because of their generic nature. What city doesn’t have a City Locksmith or City Pizza?  Probably none. Personally, I think larger city keyword domain names make very good directory websites – similar to Name Administration’s MontrealRestaurants.com. This tool allows you to easily find unregistered geodomain names and long tail geodomain names in a variety of extensions. A quick search of available city .com names in Argentina shows presidenciaroquesaenzpena.com is available to register (Presidencia Roque Saenz Pena is a city of over 75,000).

- Domain Suggestion Tool – This is a great tool for IDN investors, as Name.com integrated Google’s translation tool into it. They also have the “Google Keyword Suggestion” tab that uses Google’s Adwords api/keyword suggestion tool to suggest domains based on popular search terms. The DST  shows real search data for keyword terms that are entered.

- Web Hosting - Name.com just launched web hosting services within the past 6 months.