The registry for all .org domains appears to have collapsed - meaning that all the details of who owns any .org domain are unobtainable. We can't be sure when it vanished but it would have taken a few days to filter through the system so presumably whatever servers are hosting the registry went down at the weekend and no one has yet noticed.
Which it is all very sloppy and doesn't exactly encourage confidence in the company that now runs the .org domain - Public Interest Registry. PIR took over the domain on New Year's Day this year after VeriSign was forced to hand over the not-for-profit registry to encourage competition. Of course, VeriSign got to keep .com and .net but then that's the advantage you have when you've got a very special relationship with ICANN and the US Department of Commerce.
Despite taking it over on 1 Jan 2003, PIR went through a 25-day "phase-in" period with VeriSign so that they could be certain everything was running smoothly and seamlessly. In fact in the very early days of the transition, the PIR's chairman David Maher went on about how smooth and stable the transition was. And it was.
View: The full story
News source: The Reg
