Democracy.com had been scheduled to be auctioned via Heritage Auctions, and the bid deadline was October 25. The auction got quite a bit of press, including articles in the New York Times and The Guardian, among other mainstream media publications that published articles. It appears the domain name is pending sale, but not via the planned auction.
When you visit Democracy.com, you are taken to a landing page within the Heritage Auctions website. There’s a graphic on the landing page that states, “DEMOCRACY.com This item has been withdrawn from auction. The consignor and Heritage have accepted an unsolicited private offer for this item.”
It does not appear that the Whois record has updated to reflect the new registrant yet. My guess is the sale price will not be publicly shared, but I will post an update if that isn’t the case or if the buyer is newsworthy.
Thanks to Brian Wick for calling the sale of the domain name to my attention today.
It was indeed a great deal of press and lead-up to an auction that wound up not taking place.
I was not even aware HA was still involved with domain names and haven’t seen or heard a single mention of them for that in ages.
No wonder – it appears this was just a one off project. People are flawed and I’ve never been that happy with how they went about this, but it’s still much better than nobody like Sotheby’s and Christie’s ever stepping up and doing it at all. This is what has *always* been needed for the industry and something I advocated for many years ago. There should be mainstream media headlines including TV news mentions whenever a great domain is being auctioned in a mainstream venue that people know and trust, just as for great artworks and other valued aspects of society.
The domain market is small, $600-800 million per year. No way will there be media whenever a great domain is auctioned. What is the point of “advocating” for this? Advocating to who? Or do you mean just commenting on blog posts?
Snoopy, as you well know you like to bash and be a jerk about anything domain related you don’t llke according to your biases. However, not to presume too much capacity for self-awareness on your part, you may also wish to know you are a clueless naysayer who lacks vision.
Hope it was Chinese government company AI bot bid gone through
word on the street is its a Nitup
Mark Cuban