So intense was the sex.com saga that my good friend Kieren McCarthy, ex ICANN manager of public participation, even wrote a book about it. Will the last chapter of this story be written tomorrow, when the name comes up for auction in New York?

Domain name and Internet watchers around the world will no doubt focus their attention on New York tomorrow, where sex.com is set to come up for auction.

The most famous domain name in the world is more Hollywood than geek. Sex.com was first registered by Gary Kremen (who later went on to launch match.com) in 1994 with what was then the world's only registrar for .COM, Network Solutions.

The following year, Kremen realized that he was no longer listed as the owner of the name. A guy called Stephen Michael Cohen has simply sent a forged fax to Network Solutions asking for the name to be transferred, and Netsol has done so without even checking!

A drawn out legal battle ensued, Cohen even went as far as fleeing the US to avoid getting caught, but Kremen eventually won the rights to his domain back. Sex.com was by then an extremely valuable piece of Internet real-estate. It is said that at one point, the name bringing in $15,000 a day!

In 2006, he sold sex.com to a company called Escom LLC for a reported $14 million, although the actual amount has never been officially confirmed. Escom made the deal with a loan from DOM partners, and was then unable to repay.

To try and get some of their money back, DOM Partners are putting the name up for auction. To take part, potential buyers must stump up a $1 million certified cheque.

How much will the name go for? In today's economy, are people prepared to speculate millions of dollars on a domain name? All will be revealed tomorrow…