Domains related to Prague Airport were probably acquired by a speculator
The domains of Václav Havel Airport have found a new owner, although not in the originally planned auction. In the end, the Bussmark auction house decided to close it because it was approached by a direct bidder.
Bussmark CEO Miloš Hora declined to disclose the name of the new owner, but according to domain administrators, Beneš entrepreneur Robert Srdínko became the new holder of ten vaclav-havel-airport-prague and letlava-havlava-havla-praha domains with different endings. The man appears in a total of four companies that do business, but are not even marginally related to the airport. For example, he sells furniture and tax advice.
“Maybe I’m the owner, maybe I’m not,” Srdínko responded to an E15.cz inquiry. He indicated that he was acting as a covert investor. He also doesn’t know how to handle domains yet.
Srdínko also refused to provide the prize for which he received the domain. In the originally planned millions of auctions, Bussmark set the lowest possible bid at six crowns, and the expert opinion attached to the auction decree estimated the value at roughly 20 million.
“I would not like to speculate on the price of these domains, but I agree with the opinion that the 20 million is an amount that does not correspond to reality,” said Zuzana Průchová, the lawyer for the operator of the CZ.NIC register of Czech domains. “The fact that the airport has a functional and well-known presentation on the logical and simple domain of prg.aero will certainly play a role. I would be surprised how their domains will be handled by their holder, “she added.
Jaroslav Škrabálek from the Department of Computer Systems and Communications at Masaryk University in Brno also considers the estimate to be overestimated. “20 million could be considered until it announced that it would stay at the original address,” he said. Now the return on such a high investment is very long or completely impossible, because the chances of using domains are very marked due to their specific name.
However, the owner would use the domain to damage the airport or Václav Havel’s name – “for example, he could have launched an erotic portal,” thinks Škrabálek. “Here is the value valid for how much the participant wants to damage the original entity and what he wants to gain in return,” he added.
Václav Havel Airport has already stated in advance that it is not interested in new domains. It will continue to enjoy its current prg.aero domain.