Comment by michaelt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by michaelt | Hacker News Reader

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Made me wonder what registrar major internet companies use. Fortunately, whois can tell us:

  facebook.com -> markmonitor
  google.com -> markmonitor
  amazon.com -> markmonitor
  youtube.com -> markmonitor
  yahoo.com -> markmonitor
  baidu.com -> markmonitor
  wikipedia.org -> markmonitor
  linkedin.com -> markmonitor
  ebay.com -> markmonitor
  bing.com -> markmonitor
  microsoft.com -> markmonitor
  paypal.com -> markmonitor
  flickr.com -> markmonitor
  blogger.com -> markmonitor
  wordpress.com -> markmonitor
  live.com -> corporatedomains
  twitter.com -> corporatedomains
  apple.com -> corporatedomains
  cnn.com -> corporatedomains
  theguardian.com -> tucows
  TinyURL.com -> tucows
  theguardian.com -> tucows
  huffingtonpost.com -> melbourneit
  t.co -> melbourneit
  bitly.com -> godaddy
  barackobama.com -> godaddy
  dell.com -> safenames
  reddit.com -> gandi
  imgur.com -> enom
  ycombinator.com -> easydns
  craigslist.org -> netsol

I don't know whether markmonitor deliberately try to get popular websites as clients, aiming for some sort of halo effect.

MarkMonitor is used by companies that are interested in protecting their brand(s) online. For example, imagine Rolex would be interested in knowing if/when/how many fake watch sellers had online shops that used the keyword 'rolex' in their domain as means of appearing reputable or signalling that they offer exclusive/luxury (knock-off) products. I believe they offer more services than that though, but the point is that they're not a regular registrar.

melbourneit recently famous from the Syrian Electronic Army social engineering "hack" bringing down or defacing multiple sites including the NYTimes.com, where it is hosted.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2423699,00.asp

I was surprised to see melbourneIT up there since I live in the same city they're based in. I'm wondering why an American company is using an Australian registrar, can anyone enlighten me?

I was curious about that as well.

I checked their website and they offer both affiliate and reseller programs. My best guess is that it's actually a 3rd party that sold the domains, yet a whois lookup returns the name of the parent company/true registrar. From what I can remember, domains purchased through OpenSRS's white-label domain reseller program still reveal that Tucows is the registrar, regardless from what partner of theirs you bought it from.

Maybe someone with more knowledge can help out.

I don't have any more insider knowledge than just seeing it discussed before, but Melbourne IT acquired Verisign's brand management service, which is where they picked up most of their big name clients: http://www.zdnet.com/melbourne-it-salvages-verisign-business...

It's clear now, thank you!

I'd be intrigued to know why despite the fact that microsoft.com and bing.com are with markmonitor (along with much/most of MSFT, IIRC), live.com is with corporatedomains.

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