UPDATED (FINAL): Billy Dennis…
…apparently forgot to renew his domain name.
Bill, this Bud’s for you:
Might as well update this with what I had in the comments, since they basically tell my theory on what happened.
A) He let it expire on accident. I don’t think it would be on purpose, as he gave no indication that he was leaving the blogosphere.
B) Some scumbag ad company picked up his domain as soon as it had expired and want to charge him exorbitant amounts to “buy” it back from them. This would probably have to be settled in court, as is usually the case with scumbag companies.
C) Someone “hacked” his site by using a scumbag registrar to pick up the domain the very moment it expired, similar to what happened with Al Jazeera after the dead U.S. soldier photos controversy. This isn’t really hacking–it’s fraud.
D) He just didn’t pay the bill.
—
I checked the whois information, and the contact for the domain is the same as of 10:40am today. The domain was set to expire on the 14th (Monday), but is marked as updated on the 15th. Now it is not set to expire until 4/14/2009.
I guess the real answer to what happened lies with Mr. Dennis. If he registered using enom.com, he should be in the clear. If he didn’t, well, looks like someone else did.
UPDATE:
Upon further investigation, it seems his site WAS snatched up by one of these scumbag ad companies, called nuseek.com. They have almost 85000 other websites registered under their IP.
Bill, if you need some temporary hosting, I’ve got plenty of space. You’ve got my email address.
This entry now falls into another category: scumbaggery.
UPDATE:
Bill has the story on how it went down here.
But it looks like I was right–the domain expired and some scumbag company picked it up.
UPDATE:
Yay, a happy ending!
April 16th, 2008 at 7:51 am
I saw that…wtf? He’s even off someones blog roll!
April 16th, 2008 at 8:05 am
I ran a whois search on peoriapundit.com and the contact/owner information is the same. But it was, in fact, up for renewal as of April 14th.
I think it’ll be back though. It says it was updated today and won’t need to be updated again until 4/14/2009.
April 16th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Funny pic. I first thought Bill’s site was hacked. But, I guess your investigative prowess has uncovered the truth. Cheers!
April 16th, 2008 at 9:29 am
That’s a possibility too. It’s not hacking per se, it’s more like fraud. What might have happened is his site was set to expire, did expire, then was quickly snatched up by another registrar. Maybe they just haven’t changed the contact information yet.
It’s a tactic people use to register a domain as soon as it is set to expire. There are a number of registrars out there (or services that use a registrar) that will allow you to do this.
Al Jazeera’s website was taken down in the same manner. Some nationalist “hacktivist” fucks (likely from the U.S.) did this to take their domain name from them in retaliation for releasing photos of slain U.S. troops (remember when that happened?).
Or… Bill just forgot to pay his, uh, bill.
—
I could be wrong about it coming back. Due to the amount of traffic he probably gets, it may have been snatched up by this bullshit ad site, and if it has, they’ll probably want an exorbitant amount of money from him to “buy” it back.
April 16th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Wow!
April 16th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Scumbaggery indeed! Where the hell am I supposed to get my local news and snark now?
April 16th, 2008 at 11:06 am
He’ll either have to call the bastards out on it and threaten legal action, or he’ll need to choose another domain. I’d try doing something to get back at his old registrar too.
April 16th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
You know, a “happy ending” is often the result of getting royally screwed.
April 16th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Yeah, there has to be something bad for it to turn into something happy. Or are we talking about sexual euphemisms again?
April 21st, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Tell you what, Reno. Go down to one of Peoria’s many fine strip joints and ask one of the young ladies how much it costs for a happy ending …
April 21st, 2008 at 3:24 pm
DON’T DO IT IT’S A TRAP!