Confirmed: Apple Inc. bought http://t.co/9UNdAQhdU0 domain a couple of months ago for $50K https://t.co/dKrQsKotUn (WHOIS just updated)
— George Kirikos (@GeorgeKirikos) April 30, 2014
A few weeks ago, GoDaddy auctions announced the sale of Apple.net for $50,000, which was reported by Raymond Hackney on TheDomains.com. The Apple.net sale was the second largest reported sale of the week.
George Kirikos was tracking the sale, and according to a tweet he posted a few minutes ago, Apple, Inc. was the buyer of the Apple.net domain name. If you do a Whois search, you can see the Cupertino company is now the registrant of Apple.net. As of now, the Apple.net domain name is not resolving, but my guess is that it will forward to Apple.com at some point in the near future. $50k is a drop in the bucket for Apple, and even though it might not have a specific use for Apple.net, it’s better that they own it than another company.
Apple Inc. appears to own several other Apple domain names in various extensions. For example, the company owns the following Apple domain names (among many others I am sure):
- Apple.info
- Apple.biz
- Apple.CO
- Apple.TV
- Apple.ca
- Apple.ME
Most of the domain names either forward to the Apple homepage, while others forward to specific pages within the Apple website. Interestingly, Apple does not appear to own Apple.org, which is under privacy and forwards to another .org website.
Thanks to George Kirikos for sharing the tip about the Whois change.
Smart buy, and congrats on doing it the right way.
Thanks for the mention Elliot. Ron is right on them doing it the right way.