[ga] Why has Verisign stolen my favourite game site?

[Andy Gardner <andy@navigator.co.nz>]

I like playing Civilisation III on my Mac.

Every once in a while I go to the software maker's site to check for
upgrades...

http://www.wizardworks.com

That's funny - today it's got Verisign's "under construction" template running.

What's every STRANGER is the WHOIS record:

******

Registrant:
Verisign, Inc. (JKNJCFMYMD)
   21355 Ridgetop Circle, MS 205-4
   Dulles, VA 20166
   US

   Domain Name: WIZARDWORKS.COM

   Administrative Contact:
      Verisign, Inc.  (MOFGWRQFMO)		no.valid.email@worldnic.com
      Verisign, Inc.
      21355 Ridgetop Circle, MS 205-4
      Dulles, VA 20166
      US
      1-866-734-8776 (NA) fax: 1-703-326-6225 (Intl)
   Technical Contact:
      VeriSign, Inc.  (HOST-ORG)		namehost@WORLDNIC.NET
      VeriSign, Inc.
      21355 Ridgetop Circle
      Dulles, VA 20166
      US
      1-888-642-9675

   Record expires on 12-Jan-2004.
   Record created on 12-Jan-1999.
   Database last updated on 21-Dec-2002 11:27:02 EST.

   Domain servers in listed order:

   NS11.WORLDNIC.COM            216.168.225.141
   NS12.WORLDNIC.COM            216.168.225.142

 ******

I'm pretty sure Verisign hasn't owned this name since 1999 (a visit to
http://web.archive.org/web/20011009000209/http://www.wizardworks.com/
appears to confirm this), and I can't see why the correct owner would give
the name away to Verisign, especially since Verisign doesn't appear to want
to make Civ3 updates available on their website.

So something fishy's going on here. I'd say it's most likely another
MONUMENTAL COCK-UP by Verisign. I heard a rumour going around that Verisign
deleted a whole bunch of domain names in error earlier this week. Was this
one of the victims?

How about someone from Verisign tell us what the hell is going on?


-- 
Andrew P. Gardner
barcelona.com stolen, stmoritz.com stays. What's uniform about the UDRP?
We could ask ICANN to send WIPO a clue, but do they have any to spare?
Get active: http://www.tldlobby.com
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