WEB SITE ADDRESS SOLD BY ITS OWNER FOR $3.35 MILLION

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) A man struck it rich by selling a Web siteaddress to Compaq Computer Corp. for $3.35 million, the San FranciscoChronicle reported today.

Quoting unidentified sources, the newspaper said Compaq paid JackMarshall of San Jose one of the highest prices ever for a Web sitein this case, www.altavista.com.

The deal settles a two-year fight between Marshall and thecomputer giant, which owns the Alta Vista Internet search engine.

"I believe this is the largest known figure for a domain nametransaction," said Edwin Hayward, who runs www.igoldrush.com, a Website that tracks such purchases.

The trade in Web addresses is not unusual, but most addresses aresold for far lower prices. In 1996, a court ruled against thepurchase of trademarked names, but generic names remain fair game.

Earlier this month, Microsoft Corp. agreed to pay $5 million to asmall, now-defunct software company from the Chicago area that saidMicrosoft stole from it the name of Internet Explorer.