Toyota.me sets record price in .me auction

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new leader. For a long time, insure.me was the most expensive domain in the auction of .me sites, but today I checked and clearly there are a lot of wealthy people wanting to buy Toyota.me - going for the cool price of $90,005 (R692138). Interesting that rape.me is also going for a bundle - not sure that's a good reflection on our society!

Domain Name Bids Time Left Current Price
toyota.me 108 21H 45M $90,005
insure.me 192 22H 5M $41,005
oglasi.me 80 5H 58M $40,014
only.me 63 13H 16M $33,405
aweso.me 60 18H 55M $18,005
match.me 93 23H 36M $16,515
hug.me 112 4H 21M $15,516
korea.me 64 22H 21M $15,015
skoda.me 71 11H 59M $15,006
china.me 99 22H 21M $10,515
recruit.me 43 10H 44M $10,155
rank.me 142 18H 14M $10,115
style.me 79 1H 18M $9,630
volu.me 93 7H 44M $9,005
surprise.me 132 22H 10M $8,644
land.me 59 10H 44M $8,516
seo.me 58 22H 21M $8,225
entertain.me 128 22H 51M $7,710
rape.me 36 1H 51M $7,015
vegas.me 33 17H 30M $6,755
just.me 59 18H 11M $6,505
beauty.me 166 7H 17M $6,406
ping.me 41 19H 37M $6,128
sign.me 72 22H 12M $6,125
cast.me 85 22H 11M $6,015

In other news, the .me auctioneers have changed their rules slightly:

===================================================================
 IMPORTANT AUCTION INFORMATION
===================================================================

Dear Auction Participant,

This notice is to inform you of an upcoming update in the behavior of the auction platform that will take effect at approximately 16:00 UTC on 11 August 2008.

The update is being made to comply with .ME Registry auction rules regarding Lead Changes, which state that "Any lead changes in the last 24 hours result in an automatic 24-hour extension of the auction."

With the update, the auction platform will no longer consider as a lead change bids placed that are higher than the current price but lower than the current leader's maximum bid.

For example, if the current auction price is $100, and the leader's maximum bid is $1,000 and another bidder places a bid for $105, the system will automatically update the auction price to $110 by applying the leader's proxy bid, thereby maintaining the same leader. This will no longer be considered a "Lead Change." If a bidder places a bid higher than $1,000 then a "Lead Change" will occur and the auction will be extended (if such a bid takes place in the last 24 hours of the auction).

The minimum bid increment of $5.00 will not change and this update is no guarantee that an auction will end sooner. This update is being done to better align the auction platform behavior with the auction rules and we thank the participants who brought this to our attention. There has been no evidence of fraud by any participant and this update will not affect the status of any closed auctions or those that began prior to the update.

Sincerely,
.ME Registry Auction Support Staff

Want more info? Here are some of the early results from the .me auctions.