There is a fairly strong chance that the domain name Dating.com has been sold! This would be a multi-million dollar domain sale if it did sell again!
Dating.com sold during a 2010 DOMAINfest domain name auction for $1.75 Million as I reported to Harlequin Holdings Limited. The domain had a “beta” site on it for several years but nothing really was on the “site” other than that. Plus it mainly focused on escorts.
Dating.com has switched domain registrars, but I’m not sure if the move alone is anything more than that, but it is looking more like a sale took place. The domain was registered with Melbourne IT LTD and part of Melbourne IT was acquired by CSC Corporate Domains so the vast majority of domains have been transferring to CSC, but Dating.com transferred to Network Solutions on 2/6/2015?
DNS has stayed the same currently and the domain went into privacy protection at NSI upon the transfer. It was not in privacy prior to transfer. Also to note, although DNS stayed the same (ns1.dating.com) the beta website that was on dating.com is not longer resolving.
Dating.com is currently on a dedicated server.
A little further digging and based on a recent website title for dating, the following was stated:
This domain address is being sold
A quick cached search for Dating.com and the domain had been recently listed for sale. Based on the title, for sale message and the recent transfer and privacy protection added to whois, these things are leading to the likely hood that Dating.com has been sold!
This was the recent website on Dating.com:
Reznick Law of New York appears to have been handling the domain transaction. This discovery was also the first time that I was even aware the domain was going back up for sale after it was purchased in 2010 for $1.75 million.
I have reached out to Reznick law for confirmation of the sale and will update when or if I hear back.
It looks like .com is going to have a great year all around; while it remains that the delegated stings are the largest new GTLD sales.