Registry of the Austria’s ccTLD .AT Nic.at summed up the results of the auction where short (1-2-symbol) names were sold. The decision to organize this auction was made back in the summer. Back then Austrian rights holders got a priority to register such names till the end of September. The remaining names were subsequently put up for an auction. According to the rules, anyone could bid even if they had nothing to do with Austria.
The word “at” has a meaning in English. It is both a preposition and also means “@”. Moreover, many English words end with “at”, for example, cat, bat, eat, chat, etc. All of this suggested that the auction would attract lots of investors’ attention, which turned out to be true. Domain Incite reports that altogether more than 1000 names were sold at the auction and the proceeds exceeded US$1 million. Investors from the US, China and Canada were particularly active. The most expensive lot was the domain c.at purchased for 56 thousand euro.
