First auction of 'Dot.Thai' URLs raises BT61,000

The Thai Network Information Centre Foundation together with THNIC and the Internet Hosting Service Provider Club arranged the auction of the first six Thai-language "dot.thai" URLs yesterday.

The six are wairoon.thai (teen.thai), nungsuepim.thai (newspaper.thai), baanlaethidin.thai (landandhouses.thai), nuad.thai (massage.thai), kuaytiew.thai (noodle.thai), and wittayu.Thai (radio.thai).
The auction's objective is to activate |the use of Thai-language URLs. Of the |proceeds from the auction, 70 per cent will be donated to disaster-related foundations and 30 per cent for URL nomination.
The auction raised Bt61,000, comprising Bt5,000 for wairoon.thai, Bt12,000 for nungsuepim.thai, Bt15,000 for baanlaethidin.thai, Bt15,000 for nuad.thai, Bt5,000 for kuaytiew.thai and Bt9,000 for wittayu.thai.
Pornthip Kongchun, marketing manager of Google Thailand, won the bid of Bt15,000 for nuad.thai.
The aim of dot.thai is to enable people who are not familiar with English to have more access to websites that normally have their URLs in English. Another benefit is to allow users to have their own e-mail accounts in the Thai language.