Non-registered domain parking

A user has asked a question about an email address, in this thread.

The address ends with @bt.uk.com

That is obviously wrong, and a check on two sites I use says that domain is not registered. However going to www.bt.uk.com gives you the common sort of link list that incorrect URL entries get. In this case hosted by sedoparking.

How does this work? I don't see how if there is no such domain registered there would be anything to redirect the URL to sedoparking. Or any other such site in the more general case.

I do understand that common mis-spellings can be registered, but this isn't the case here.

Good question. There's clearly a DNS entry at work

phil@minuet:~$ nslookup bt.uk.com
Server: 192.168.1.1
Address: 192.168.1.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: bt.uk.com
Address: 91.213.214.122

which is a Dutch outfit
inetnum: 91.213.214.0 - 91.213.214.255
netname: myH2oservers
descr: myH2Oservers
country: NL

I vaguely remember some fuss when one of the domain name registration entities put in place a scheme to deflect unregistered names to a 3rd party, or something along those lines. I've also noticed some retail ISPs deflect you to a sort of help page if you put in a duff address, but as this one resolves in DNS I guess it's a deal with DNS providers ?

www.bt.uk.com mail is handled by 0 uk-com-wildcard-null-mx.centralnic.net.

centralnic.net is another domain registration site.

CentralNIC are actually a registry too, responsible for uk.com

Matt

that makes more sense. Would they be deflecting web requests to a 3rd party ?

Possibly because *BT* might be reserved for Bhutan, and they want to monitise it.

frosty:~ mattm$ whois -hwhois.centralnic.com bt.uk.com
Domain name: bt.uk.com

This name is invalid.

This whois service is provided by CentralNic Ltd and only contains information
pertaining to Internet domain names we have registered for our customers. By
using this service you are agreeing (1) not to use any information presented
here for any purpose other than determining ownership of domain names (2) not
to store or reproduce this data in any way. CentralNic Ltd - www.centralnic.com

A dodgy business it seems.

It certainly appears I could register that domain.

Why? Many registries do that, most when it expires and has not been paid, but some when they're not registered.

I doubt you'll be able to get bt.uk.com, as their WHOIS confirms it is invalid whereas if you search for a valid non-registered name you get: This domain name may be available for registration.

Matt

In reply to a post by yarwell:

that makes more sense. Would they be deflecting web requests to a 3rd party ?

Must be. Or maybe handling it in-house, but surely if they were doing that they would offer registration for it?

I wonder why when I go to www.bt.uk.com the label on the Tab is bt.co.uk as is the first line of the page? Also the source of the page shows the sedoparking that I remarked on originally.