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Anal whitening biz drops one million clams for Vibrators.com

'We draw the line at porn'

A tiny etailer in the suburbs of Detroit has paid $1m for the web address most conducive to selling vibrators.

PriveCo Inc. - the company that sells anal bleaching cream from Shopinprivate.com and penis pinatas from Bachelorette.com - is now the proud owner of the Vibrators.com domain.

"Of all the companies in the world," said the press release, "PriveCo is probably the best choice to run Vibrators.com."

Tom Nardone founded PriveCo in 1998, intent on "finding embarrassing things and selling them online." This includes not only anal bleaching cream, penis pinatas, and vibrators but also "filters that go in your underpants so that when you pass gas it doesn't smell" and "your very own stripper pole."

But it doesn't sell porn. "We draw the line not at what's social acceptable," he told The Reg. "We draw the line at what's exploitative. We don't sell pornography because it exploits people."

The way Nardone told it, PriveCo. affords blushing shoppers a level of privacy they can't get elsewhere on the web. "We run everything in house," Nardone said. This means the company doesn't use an outside call center. It runs its own warehouse. And it doesn't share customer phone numbers or email addresses with outside shipping companies.

Presumably, it does share mailing addresses.

Vibrators.com was originally purchased by a family in the "industrial vibratory equipment business." But they never got around to actually hawking their shaky steel online. Then, in 2002, they let Nardone sell handheld vibrators from the site on their behalf.

And now he's bought the domain outright - for one million clams.

Nardone said his company is the largest sellers of bachelorette merchandise in the world, thanks to Bachelorette.com and Bacheloretteparty.com. Last year, he says, his sites raked in $3.28m, and this year, revenues will approach $4m. ®

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