Matthew Lynn Matthew Lynn

Pound sold to highest bidder

Matthew Lynn on domain name sales<br type="_moz" />

issue 28 June 2008

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.

Matthew Lynn
Written by
Matthew Lynn
Matthew Lynn is a financial columnist and author of ‘Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis’ and ‘The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031’

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