The Sex.com saga just keeps getting stranger.
The domain is again at the center of a lawsuit, but Gary Kremen isn’t involved with it. A suit was filed in Tuesday in U.S. District Court against Domain Name Acquisition Group, a Boston-based Internet real estate developer and prospector that optioned the domain from Kremen for $11 million.
Domain Name Acquisition Group had been shopping the domain around the industry trying to broker a deal. According to the lawsuit filed by Philadelphia-based Sex.com Inc., the companies entered into an agreement in which Sex.com Inc. would purchase the domain for $11.4 million from the broker. Sex.com Inc. put down a $500,000 refundable deposit, but the deal has since fallen apart and the amount has not been refunded, according to the suit.
The civil complaint accuses Domain Name Acquisition Group and its principles, Andrew Miller and Peter Hubshman, of theft, trickery, and extortion, saying the defendants “knowingly and intentionally sought and coerced plaintiff into signing the agreement by way of repeated untruths regarding the domain name Sex.com, about other competing offers for the domain name Sex.com and various other material and relevant exaggerations and untruths.”
Shortly after optioning Sex.com, Miller said that his company planned to either purchase it outright or broker it by Nov. 1, and subsequently, the company was aggressively shopping it around the industry. Kremen told AVNOnline.com that the option expires in October, but Domain Name Acquisition Group can extend it by paying a daily rate.
While he isn’t involved in the latest lawsuit, Kremen has been in a court battle over Sex.com with Stephen Michael Cohen for a number of years. Cohen was convicted of stealing the domain from Kremen in 2001. Kremen was awarded $65 million and Cohen subsequently fled the country. Cohen appealed the decision all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Miller and Hubshman did not return calls seeking comment.
