CM.com was deleted and is unregistered…

[Arief WN]

but you can’t have it. :P

CM.com was deleted this year, but is unavailable for registration.
If you pop on over to DomainTools and type in the domain name CM.com, you might be surprised to see that it is not registered.

*Note: but it's taken if you check it with this*

But when you visit your domain name registrar, you’ll find out the domain isn’t available for registration. Despite being registered from 1997 until at least the middle of 2013, CM.com has been sent to purgatory.

The domain name was apparently deleted by the registrar this year. The domain was renewed through 2020, but the registrar put a nameserver of NS1.SPAMSHUTDOWN.COM on the domain, which leads me to believe the registrar put the kibosh on the domain.

So why can’t someone else step in and register the domain now? I reached out to .com registry Verisign, which referred me to Appendix 6 of the 2012 registry agreement the company signed with ICANN.
Appendix 6 states that “all two-character labels must be reserved from initial (non-renewal) registration.”

This means that owners of two character domains are free to continue using them (or transfer them). But if one isn’t already registered, then it can’t be registered.

That’s the case with CM.com. It went from being registered to not being registered, making any new registration effectively an initial registration.

The fate of CM.com is a rare occurrence. If someone actually decided to not renew their valuable two letter .com domain name, most registrars would send the domain to auction and do a direct transfer of the domain before it expired.

Source.

 

[Keith]

There was a thread about this already but...the previous owner has several premium domains. I'm not sure how it can be deleted when the registration date is set to expire years down the road. It smells of foul play to me!

 

[Kate]

A domain can be deleted at once, at any time. Just do something really bad, and your prepaid years will vanish along with the domain

 

[Dave_Z]

There's a clue why the domain name was deleted: NS1.SPAMSHUTDOWN.COM. That means the domain name was allegedly used to "spam" someone or more, which likely breached Dotster's contract.

Apparently the owner (Satoshi) never knew. Hopefully he can work out something with the registrar.