Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has made many acquisitions in its four decades of existence, but the recent acquisition is perhaps the most interesting one. Not just because of its nature but because of its paid price which is estimated over 170,000 times the regular market price.
On Tuesday, the tech giant Microsoft confirmed the acquisition of a new domain named ‘corp.com’. While the value at which Microsoft buys corp.com still remains a mystery, it has been found out that the domain was first put up for sale in February by Mike O’Connor at the price of $1.7 million.
Why did Microsoft buy corp.com?
Microsoft buys Corp.com so that the bad guys can’t. Yes, you read it correctly. The Redmond tech giant saw it as a potential security threat that was just waiting to be exploited, and the only way the company could make sure it is in safe hands was by purchasing it.
The security reasons for which Microsoft had to buy this domain is something known as ‘namespace collision’. This is when there happens to be an overlap between an internal domain and an address on the internet.
Microsoft’s earlier versions of Windows presented admins with ‘corp’ as the default domain name suggestion when setting up a company’s Active Directory service. Therefore, it could very well have been possible for someone to leverage the domain ‘corp.com’ to harvest sensitive information from Windows devices with default settings.
A Microsoft spokesperson, in a statement, said that when it comes to planning internal domain and network settings, they encourage their customers to practice safe security habits so that it can help keep their systems protected.
The company spokesperson further added that in June of 2009, they released a security advisory along with a security update to help keep their consumer safe, and it is in the same spirit of their ongoing commitment to the security of their consumers that they acquired the domain name ‘corp.com’
Mike O’Connor purchased the domain name about 26 years ago and let it stay dormant as he was well aware of the security risks that ‘corp.com’ posed to users of Microsoft Windows. He also hoped back then that Microsoft would definitely take notice of this problem and do right by their users by purchasing it someday.
Major Hefty Domain Deals Made By Other Companies
Microsoft purchasing a domain name for a huge sum of money is not the first instance of companies going the extra mile to secure any widely popular domain name. A few other significant examples are listed below:
Fb.com
It was the American Farm Bureau Federation which owned the domain name fb.com. However, Mark Zuckerberg happened to acquire it for an enormous amount of $8.5 million in the year 2010. After that purchase, the domain name fb.com has become quite exclusively synonymous with Facebook.
Hotels.com
Back in 2001, the president of Hotels.com David Roche bought the domain name for a whopping $11 million. Roche confessed that at the time of the purchase everyone thought it was a ‘crazy sum of money’ however looking back at it now, he now believes it to be an extremely good investment.
Beer.com
In 1998, Andrew Miller and Michael Zapolin bought the domain name beer.com for $80,000 and used it for a site wherein people could rate their favourite brews. However, soon after a year, a company called Interbrew bought the domain name from them for a whopping $7 million.
Internet.com
The domain name ‘internet.com’ was bought by a company called QuinStreet for about 1.8 million. The company planned to create the largest online advertiser network along with the purchase of the domain names ‘insure.com’ and ‘carinsurance.com’.
Housing.com
Housing.com is a popular real-estate search portal as of now. Earlier launched as Housing.in the company bought the domain name housing.com for a whopping $1 million shortly after securing huge investment from SoftBank. According to the Co-founder of Housing.com Aditya Sharma, the company took the decision to purchase the domain name because of two major reasons – the ‘.com’ being an authority in the internet space as well as in people’s psychology and because of the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) value it brought to the table.
Those are some hefty sales. In fact, Housing.com would be worth much more.
In an old post that I think I saw on NamePros, VacationRentals.com was listed as one of the highest sales with $30+ million in sales amount.
Not sure if it was the domain only deal or the business came along with it.