Go to http://www.priusonline.com now and you'll find an ad page for domain name brokers, and this: "Notice: This domain name expired on 01/28/06 and is pending renewal or deletion"
I've sent a recommendation to the domain owner that they move AWAY from godaddy as their registrar. Godaddy has a long history of being spammer-friendly and generally lame, so this presents a good opportunity to jump. Unfortunately, any renewal/change process often gets mired in administrative bs for several days so it's probably going to be a while before POL gets back on its feet... . _H*
I have to admit, I am finding it harder and harder to spend any time on POL. It doesn't seem to have the same flavor or interest for me. I guess it is kind of like VHS and Beta back in the day. PC has just become "better". But, like Microsoft, eventually a big group will come along and want something better than PC. It is ALL market forces.
If that domain ever disappears again, you can access it directly by just specifying the IP address instead... http://69.64.32.45
Thanks John. That worked!!! ... well I thought it did. When I used the IP address it took me to POL. However, when I tried to log in, it took me to the Go Daddy site. Wonder why???
Because the server send you a redirect using the domain name. Quick overview of DNS: When you connect to another computer, you need to know its IP address. Because humans generally suck at remembering numbers, the DNS system matches up names with those numbers. This way, you type in "www.priusonline.com" and your computer asks your ISP for the matching IP address. Your ISP then asks other DNS servers (who may then have to ask others...) until it gets the IP. In your case, your ISP had asked for the IP for "www.priusonline.com" previously, and got the IP address of godaddy's placeholder server. When you asked, your ISP just responded with what it believed was true (even if the problem had since been fixed and the server giving the correct IP again). It can take some time for ISPs to ask again and find out the updated info. (and that's probably more than you wanted to know. Oh, well.)
It came back sooner than I thought; it is possible that godaddy just screwed up and jumped the gun, or that payment was received, or whatever. The mail I tried to send to the domain owner, listed as one Jeff Hatton at potsdam.edu, bounced with "no such user". While most of the registrars are guilty of accepting out of date or downright false information about domainholders, godaddy has traditionally been one of the worst offenders -- trying to track spammer domains through them often came back with clearly false info, i.e. they were helping the spammers hide. . Not that priusonline necessarily falls into this class, but it would help if the domainholder info *could* be updated to reflect reality and be maintained by a more reliable service. If anyone knows how to contact the domain owner, would they please pass this on? . _H*
Not to go completely off-topic here, but upon what do you base this statement? I am curious. It's been my experience that GoDaddy is more vigilant against spammers and scammers than other registrars, and they've always been responsive when we point out pump-and-dump domains, etc. They're one of the few registrars that have implemented certain safe-guards against that kind of activity, actually. I certainly think they could be doing more, but I don't have any reason to believe or know of any substantial evidence saying they're "spammer-friendly," at least any moreso than other similar businesses.
How are they "helping" spammers hide? All large registrar firms use automated systems that establish thousands of new domains daily -- GoDaddy is no exception. It would be unreasonable to expect every registration to be carefully examined by the human eye for false information. That would be like blaming credit card companies when someone makes a purchase with a stolen credit card. It does appear that the previous registration for priusonline.com expired on January 28 and was just renewed today, according to WHOIS records.
I suspect he is complaining about Domans by Proxy, a service GoDaddy sells through their site that hides whois information. I use it for my personal site to avoid the random kooks who really have no business knowing where I live. It also stops the scumbags that like spamming the email addresses in whois info. However, it is also commonly used by spammers to hide their identities.
