A month or so ago, members of the Pendleton (Oregon) Amateur Radio Club were exploring the possibility of registering their own Internet domain, and moving their web hosting to another location.  A quick whois of the desired domain name (based on their US FCC-registered amateur radio callsign) revealed that their name was available in pretty much all TLDs.  On the day prior to the club officers' regularly scheduled meeting, in which they were to publicly consider the merits of this proposal, the .COM form of their domain was suddenly registered to a company in Nassau, Bahamas!  This seemed so incredibly unlikely, and yet, there it was.  The officers were advised of this, and encouraged to use the .ORG form, since they are a not-for-profit organization anyway.  The officers approved of the proposal, and determined that they would need to go before the general membership to get the final approval they needed to proceed.

A few days later, I noticed that the [Nassau company's] .COM registration was no longer showing up in whois queries!  I was completely baffled by this, as the expiration date had been one full year out.  But, there it was and I couldn't explain it.  I shrugged my shoulders and awaited the general membership meeting results to see what we were going to do.  Fast-forward to 06 February, and read on for what was to be a truly educational experience for me.

The day after the general membership meeting, I received a call with the go-ahead, and a request for some assistance in getting the domain registration done.  As I started to talk my colleague through the process over the phone, I found that now the .ORG version of their domain name was registered to a company in Nassau!  What the heck was going on?!?  Here was the result of my whois query, with a little "doctoring" done on the domain ID / name: 

Domain ID:D314794237-LROR
Domain Name:AA7AA.ORG
Created On:04-Feb-2007 08:08:01 UTC
Expiration Date:04-Feb-2008 08:08:01 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Domaindoorman, LLC (R1391-LROR)
Status:TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:DO617051558675-R
Registrant Name:Wan-Fu China, Ltd.
Registrant Street1:P.O.Box CB-11901
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Nassau
Registrant State/Province:-
Registrant Postal Code:-
Registrant Country:BS
Registrant Phone:+31.847486135
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:+31.847486135
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:business@wanfuchina.com
Admin ID:DO617051558675-A
Admin Name:Wan-Fu China, Ltd.
Admin Street1:P.O.Box CB-11901
Admin Street2:
Admin Street3:

Admin City:Nassau
Admin State/Province:-
Admin Postal Code:-
Admin Country:BS
Admin Phone:+31.847486135
Admin Phone Ext.:
Admin FAX:+31.847486135
Admin FAX Ext.:
Admin Email:business@wanfuchina.com
Tech ID:DO617051558675-T
Tech Name:Wan-Fu China, Ltd.
Tech Street1:P.O.Box CB-11901
Tech Street2:
Tech Street3:
Tech City:Nassau
Tech State/Province:-
Tech Postal Code:-
Tech Country:BS
Tech Phone:+31.847486135
Tech Phone Ext.:
Tech FAX:+31.847486135
Tech FAX Ext.:
Tech Email:business@wanfuchina.com
Name Server:NS-1.REGISTRAR-FLY.COM
Name Server:NS-2.REGISTRAR-FLY.COM
Name Server:NS-3.REGISTRAR-FLY.COM

Now this was totally bizarre in my mind, and the timing was highly suspicious. My colleague said not to worry, as he could just go ahead and register the .COM form of the domain name, which he did.  Meanwhile, I did some checking to see what I could find out about this "Wan-Fu China" outfit and what they were doing.  These pages on "domain tasting" (also known as "domain kiting") here and here spelled out exactly what was going on, and the process just left me floored!

So, in a nutshell, someone was snooping our whois queries and those of thousands of other people (maybe our registrar is not so scrupulous?), and was fishing to see if it would be profitable for them to do something with the domain.  The company gets to "try" it free for five days, capture some advertising revenue if there is sufficient traffic to the domain, and optionally pay for it at the end of the five days if it looks like they might be able to turn a "small profit," as they are attempting to do with this unfortunate organization who inadvertently let their domain registration lapse.  I guess the last thing you want to do is act interested in obtaining it (or getting it back), or your chances of getting the domain for anything reasonable are pretty well shot.

My guess is that Wan-Fu will turn back the .ORG version of the Pendleton club's domain at the end of the 5 days, as it will not be a money-making deal for them.  The club is very low-budget, and definitely won't be interested in registering more than one domain.  Meanwhile, the club was inconvenienced because of some very sleazy practices and practitioners.  I personally hope you lose your shirt, Wan-Fu, but as long as you get to "taste" hundreds of thousands of domains for free and massively abuse the system, and have apparent willing accomplices in the likes of Dotster and Verisign (the latter of which has a history of shady practices), that's not likely to happen.

Note: Sure enough, as of February 10, 2007, whois queries indicate that the .ORG version of their domain is once again available.