Existing Domain Names That Would Benefit Public Companies

The full live auction list including reserve price ranges for the live auction at the upcoming TRAFFIC conference has been released.

Some of the best generic dot com domain names are held by public companies. Some are used in relation to a particular campaign or product like open.com or baby.com, while others simply forward the owner's main website like gift.com or books.com. Here is an extensive list of generic domain names owned by public corporations.

For fun, I've put together a matchmaker list of domains up for auction and corporations that would benefit from buying them. I've also included the listed reserve price range to show that many of the names could be picked up on the cheap (well, relatively).

Amusement.com ($25-$50K) - Cedar Fair (FUN) or Six Flags (SIX)

Banners.com ($250-500K) - Google (GOOG) for banner advertising

Choppers.com ($500-$750K) - Harley Davidson (HDI)

Computer.com ($1-$5M) - Dell (DELL) or HP (HPQ) for selling computers. CNET Networks (CNET) to complement their ownership of computers.com

DigitalCertificates.com ($10-$25K) - Verisign (VRSN)

Ethanol.com ($750K-$1M) - Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Pacific Ethanol (PEIX)

GlobalPositioningSystem.com ($25-$50K)- Garmin (GRMN) or maybe Nokia (NOK) to go with the Navteq acquisition.

Idols.com ($10-$25K) - News Corp (NWS-A) for American Idol.

IncomeTaxReturn.com ($10-$25K) - H&R Block (HRB), Intuit (INTU) for TurboTax.

Newlyweds.com ($50-100K) - TheKnot.com (KNOT)

News.mobi ($1-$5K) - CENT Networks (CNET) to use for news.com mobile offering, or News Corp (NWS-A) why lose out to CNET twice?

StockQuotes.com ($1-$5M) - Interactive Data Corp (IDC) they operate Quote.com .

SportsScores.com ($50-$100K) - Disney (DIS) to use for ESPN.

Taxes.com ($1-$5M) - H&R Block (HRB), Intuit (INTU) for TurboTax.

WallStreet.com ($1-$5 M) - TheStreet.com (TSCM). Or perhaps the upcoming, unnamed Dow Jones and IAC joint venture personal finance site?


And on the lighter side...

Bad.com ($250-$500K) - Motorola (MOT) to hedge their acquisition of Good Technology, aka good.com.

EmergencyLoan.com ($5-$10K) - Bank of America (BAC)

USTrademarks.com ($5-$10K) - Vonage (VG) or Research in Motion (RIMM)