• Tech Crunch, Thursday, June 18, 2009 12:15 PM

Looks like Yahoo's economic situation could be even worse that many suspect. The beleaguered Web giant is reportedly embarking on a desperate money-saving strategy to sell off Web domains, industry blog TechCrunch reports, citing an unnamed tipster. "That's exactly what it has done with Contests.com, which sold during a live auction last night."

More remarkable are the bargain-basement prices Yahoo is offering for its owned Web domains. Contests.com, which TechCrunch considers "a killer domain name," sold it for only $380,000. By contrast, in February, Toys.com sold for $5.1 million in auction, while a few weeks ago, Candy.com sold for $3 million.

TechCrunch wants to know why Yahoo would even sell the domain in the first place? They know "times are tough at Yahoo" but is $380K really going to help much in the long run? "No. Hell, it'd probably be better to keep the domain and just put a load of ads on it, perhaps even Google ads."

Read the whole story at Tech Crunch »