Google loses German domain

Tuesday, 23 January 2007, 00:06

Google appears to have lost its German domain name to a cybersquatter after forgetting to renew the registration for google.de.

The page now directs you to a holding page at Goneo, a web hosting company. The domain’s WHOIS entry now reads:

[Holder]
Type: ORG
Name: favo
[...]
Country: DE
Remarks: ID #8616
Changed: 2004-10-27T10:45:06+02:00

Favo’s website describes it as a company specialising in registering recently-expired domains. The company’s administrative contact — like Google.de’s right now — is one Mario Micklisch of Wiesbaden.

As Wortfeld reported, it’s fairly common for big online property owners to forget about their domains. Microsoft once had the same thing happen to Hotmail.co.uk, and WashingtonPost.com also got lost once.

Update: Something else is going on as well. As user Atari is pointing out in comments all over the place, German web-based WHOIS tool Serversniff.de (and other WHOIS lookups based in Germany) show some unusual results for Google.com:

Server Name: GOOGLE.COM.ZZZZZ.GET.LAID.AT.WWW.SWINGINGCOMMUNITY.COM
IP Address: 69.41.185.195
Registrar: INNERWISE, INC. D/B/A ITSYOURDOMAIN.COM
Whois Server: whois.itsyourdomain.com
Referral URL: http://www.itsyourdomain.com

Server Name: GOOGLE.COM.ZOMBIED.AND.HACKED.BY.WWW.WEB-HACK.COM
IP Address: 217.107.217.167
Registrar: ONLINENIC, INC.
Whois Server: whois.OnlineNIC.com
Referral URL: http://www.OnlineNIC.com

etc…

English-language WHOIS tools, however, show Google owned by a Mountain View, California, corporation of the same name. Whatever is going on seems to be localised to Germany for the moment.

Update: Google.de seems to be pointing at Google again.

Update: See also SearchEngineLand, Google Blogscoped.

Entry Filed under: Germany, Google