In late October, the Portugal.com domain was sold for $350,000 via Sedo’s Great Domains Auction, with the bidder paying the highest price for the lot. Earlier, the domain’s seller said he was ready to settle for a minimum price of $250,000 to $500,000. It appears that he is quite happy with the $350,000 sum. Under auction regulations, the transaction is declared closed if the sum has been paid in full. Judging by Sedo’s Twitter account, this has already happened. According to the Whois record, the domain is pending transfer at GoDaddy. But it is so far unclear who the buyer is. While reporting the news, Domain Investing speculated that Andrew Rosener, a famous investor, could have purchased it. Mr. Rosener, who has been living in Portugal for a long time, said he had nothing to do with the transaction.
Previously, .COM domains whose names coincide with those of specific countries have been bought for even more substantial sums. For example, Korea.com, England.com and Russia.com went for $5 million, $2 million and $1.5 million respectively. Therefore one might say that this is the Portugal.com buyer’s lucky day. On the other hand, all of the above-mentioned transactions were closed at least ten years ago. More recently, the situation has changed. In 2021, a US court ruled that French authorities had the right to manage the France.com domain. And other national governments can also take advantage of this precedent.
