[georgestephanis]

Not really. The citation you mentioned above itself says, under "Private Auctions" --

> The winner will pay the amount of the second-highest bid, split either equally or proportionally between the losing applicants

And if you look at the news articles from the time that .blog was auctioned -- like http://domainincite.com/17991-blog-won-in-eight-figure-aucti... -- Minds + Machines, one of the losing bidders, revealed that they had received 3.4 million dollars after pulling out of the bidding for both `.blog` and `.store`

Also, apart from all the above which is public knowledge and there for you to find on your own, I work for Automattic, and when I checked with those who were involved with the .blog purchase, he confirmed that the winning bid was dispersed to the losing bidders. All in all, not a bad consolation prize.