3 ms·

This comment is bizarre. Whois says: -Domain record activated: 10-May-1999 -Domain record last updated: 03-Sep-2007 -Domain expires: 31-Jul-20

• curmudgeon 19y ago
  The point isn't when the domain was first registered. It seems that every domain which was never intermittently dropped from the whois databases shows the date of first registration, regardless of any changes in ownership. academia.edu did change owners several times after the new .edu rules were put in place in 2001 (as evidenced by whois and nameserver history databases from several private sources and historic zone files which are widely available since verisign used to publish then until a few years ago, etc.). Due to change in ownership and Academia Inc not being an accredited educational institution they are in clear violation of .edu rules. The grandfathering of existing domains in 2001 allowed non-accredited 'institutions' to 'keep' their domains but certainly does not allow a change of ownership. Consequently, I find it rather unlikely that Academia Inc will be able to keep this domain once the powers that be take notice, or a competitor in their space. Building a commercial social network named "something.edu" is therefore rather silly.