Expiring domain's namesever suddenly changes (owner not changed) NS1.SMARTNAME.COM

[champ_rock]

hi

Ok, A bit of the background first. This domain was registered under a programme in which Microsoft Office was registering free domains for people.(its at melbourneit registrar) The owner of the domain registered this domain initially but never bothered to use the domain or even change the whois. The contact email was a default one set by microsoft office and didnt work despite my attempts to contact him.

I was watching this domain and it expired on 04 feb 2010. I am quite sure that the owner didnt intend to renew it since he hadnt used the domain for the whole period. So, the domain expires and melbourneit changes its NS pointing it to a "expired page". About 20 days after that (on 24feb), the domain now points to the following
NS1.SMARTNAME.COM
NS2.SMARTNAME.COM
whereas the domain registration details, whois email etc is everything the same.

What I can gather is that smartname.com is a big player but what hassles me is HOW did they get the domain? the expiration process was never completed. it was too early for it to be listed in any backordering service. I cant get how they can simply take away expiring domains like that!

Any ideas/opinions?

 

[DotWeekly]

The domain industry surely has its dirty side and the expired domain market is one of the dirtiest.

I have found out through the years that by simply using whois is very hard to track the status of a domain name. There is so much that can not be seen.

I could put out 100 different things that "could" be happening but that would all be speculating and not worth the time really.

Things that make it hard are Auto Renew period, the fact that anybody can have anything in for whois!

 

[cdboard]

I watched a domain under similar circumstances. (ex-microsoft free domain)

domain expired, nameservers set to smartname.com.

since the name wasn't really valuable, I had a hunch the name would not be kept.

the name eventually went into pending delete. time from expiration to pending delete was about two months.


the registrar might have a deal with smartname to temporarily park the domains.


don't visit the domain, or you may look like valuable traffic.


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<<-------------------- woohoo! I have six stars over there under my name. :D

 

[champ_rock]

@cdboard, thanks for your prompt reply. I hope that the domain that I am watching also is just parked temporarily.

If anyone has had similar experience, then please share the same.