July 16, 2007 -- Inside a Midtown hotel, Larry Fischer is on his cellphone with a financial backer as his partner, Ari Goldberger, does quick research on a laptop computer.

They are bidding furiously at this auction of Internet domain names, with hopes of snagging megayachts.com. The duo won't be deterred. They want this name.

"$110,000, yes or no? Quick," Fischer barks at Eli, the investor at the end of the phone.

Someone else makes a bid for $120,000. Fischer and Goldberger up the ante two times.

Going once, going twice . . . sold to Fischer and Goldberger for $150,000. "You got it," a smiling Fischer tells Eli. Mazel tovs are exchanged. These are boom times in an estimated $2 billion industry that involves the buying and selling of domain names and pay-per-click advertising revenue for the owners of the names.

"This industry is like the Wild, Wild West right now and people have no idea how fast it's growing," said Jerry Nolte, managing partner of Domainer's Magazine.

Experts believe the industry's market value could reach $4 billion by 2010 as people continue to purchase approximately 90,000 names a day. At the end of first quarter 2007, at least 128 million domain names had been registered worldwide, a 31 percent increase over the previous year, according to industry-tracker VeriSign.

One name - creditcheck.com - went for $3 million, but paled in comparison to the sale of sex.com, which sold for $12 million last year.

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.