Several German Blog Sites reported yesterday morning, just after midnight, about a weird but very real ownership change of the Google.de, the German Google Search Engine web site. Was is a successful hijaking attempt or did Google forget to renew their domain?
Reports came in telling us that Google.de has a new owner since January 22nd: Martin R. from Wiesbaden, Germany (with Mario M. listed as technical contact). Danny over at Search Engine Land also sees a screen showing German C-star Mirco Nontschew next to the message “Fr diese Domain wurden keine Inhalte hinterlegt. Bitte schauen Sie zu einem spteren Zeitpunkt nochmal vorbei…”, which translates into, “No content was provided for this domain. Please come back again later…”
The domain ownership went back to Google some hours later, at around 9:00 CET. Google did not provide us with a comment yet, but according to information from German IT news sites Golem and Heise, here’s what happened.
In mid-January 2007, someone issued a request with web host Goneo.de for ownership of Google.de (this is called a “KK-Antrag” here). Without further verification, Goneo forwarded this request to German domain manager DeNIC, who then asked Google Inc if this change was OK. But Google failed to answer to this question in time (within 5 days, according to Hosting-Domain.de), which DeNIC treats as a silent acknowledgment – causing an automated change of the domain ownership from Google Inc to Goneo at around 20:30 CET yesterday.
But that’s not the end of it – Goneo realized what happened and blindly allowed DeNIC to free the domain. Soon thereafter, another “KK” change request was issued by a Wiesbaden domain merchant (Heise and Golem refer to Martin R. or Mario M., I guess)… who, around midnight, found himself to be the new owner of Google.de. Amazing what can happen, if you ask me!
Source: Roland G. Buck – Chief Editor, DomainNews.com – January 23th, 2007
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