I am in The Netherlands and I get to Google Germany when going to google.de.

Google.de works as expected for me. Here's what I get in the whois:

[Edit: The temporary domain owner in question requested from me that his personally identifiable information be removed. So I did in my article and this comment. -Philipp]

In the U.S. it goes to goneo.de as described.

From Greece no problem getting to google.de.

That's funny: I just saw that Goneo page instead of google.de and immediately thought "I have to inform Philipp about this". So I went to your page...

I am in Germany and had the same strange url on my desktop, after 20 minutes was google.de back....!?

From Rio de janeiro I get goneo.....

That would be embarrassing :-). Did Google let their .de-domain expire? I see a new owner at denic.de but the name servers are still pointing to Google. Remember when this happened to microsoft.com?

The denic entry is still favo, but the nameservers point to nsX.google.com – seems that somebody already has taken action...

OTOH, all the German parent dns servers point to goneo.de

l.de.net [89.213.253.189] ns1.goneo.de. ns2.goneo.de.
s.de.net [193.159.170.149] ns1.goneo.de. ns2.goneo.de.
z.nic.de [194.246.96.1] ns1.goneo.de. ns2.goneo.de.
c.de.net [208.48.81.43] ns1.goneo.de. ns2.goneo.de.
a.nic.de [193.0.7.3] ns1.goneo.de. ns2.goneo.de.
f.nic.de [81.91.164.5] ns1.goneo.de. ns2.goneo.de.

https://www.xing.com/profile/Mario_Micklisch/

When tested from Finland it goes to Google Deutschland with no problems.

Would you renew a Google-(or any big company)-domain if you noticed that it was just about to expire?

And now google.de redirects to google.com. It gets more interesting by the minute...

Someone doesn't know how to leverage link-bait or Adsense for search :-)

Screenshots: http://www.entartete-kunst.com/googlehijack/

Doing a reverse IP look-up at http://www.seologs.com/ip-domains.html?domainname=www.google.de

www.google.de has address 82.100.220.170
Found 319 websites with the IP 82.100.220.170

1) 2733.webtest.goneo.de
2) 3190.webtest.goneo.de
3) 3338.webtest.goneo.de
4) 3942.webtest.goneo.de
5) 99rank.de

etc.

hi,
i saw it and have sreenshoots at http://www.media-mind.de/seo/google-forum/google-verliert-domain-martin-rusteberg-558.html

the company you see in the whois make business with expired domains... but i dont belive that this is the reason or that a google guy dont renew the registration. at denic.de (german registry) you dont have to renew a registration as for COM Domains.
others talk about a hacked registry account..

i checked the WHOIS of Google.com and finf this:

Server Name: GOOGLE.COM.SUCKS.FIND.CRACKZ.WITH. SEARCH.GULLI.COM
IP Address: 80.190.192.24
Registrar: KEY-SYSTEMS GMBH
Whois Server: whois.rrpproxy.net
Referral URL: http://www.key-systems.net

Server Name: GOOGLE.COM.SPROSIUYANDEKSA...
Registrar: MELBOURNE IT, LTD. D/B/A INTERNET NAMES WORLDWIDE
Whois Server: whois.melbourneit.com
Referral URL: http://www.melbourneit.com

Server Name: GOOGLE.COM.SA
Registrar: OMNIS NETWORK, LLC
Whois Server: whois.omnis.com
Referral URL: http://domains.omnis.com

Server Name: GOOGLE.COM.PLZ.GIVE.A.PR8.TO. AUDIOTRACKER.NET
IP Address: 213.251.184.30
Registrar: OVH
Whois Server: whois.ovh.com
Referral URL: http://www.ovh.com

thats clear... any guy hacked a registry account

Something similar happened to Google.cn last July.
http://googlified.com/2006googlecn-hacked/
DNS Hijacking?

mediamind

Thats subdomains

(GOOGLE.COM.SUCKS.FIND.CRACKZ.WITH.SEARCH.) [subdomain](GULLI.COM)[domain]

like midiamind.google.com ;)

google.de seems fine from the US now.

In France, I get Google...

Domain data
   Domain: google.de
   Latest update: 23.01.2007

[Specifics removed due to DeNIC ToS. -Philipp]

this might explain something:
http://www.golem.de/0701/50090.html (german)

I'm not sure how .de domains work but I know that if you request the transfer of a .com domain that's not locked, it will be transferred automatically if no reply is received from the domain owner within around 2 weeks. Could something like that have happened?

No problem from France, so like Haochi, it reminds me the Chinese DNS issue...

No problems from the netherlands.
I get google by the Amsterdam and then goes to Groningen.
So maybe it is a dns problem in other country's then europe.

intrestingly, Microsoft.co.in is also not owned by microsoft .... it is re-directed to www.etechsupport.net ... I read an article posted 6 months back, that microsoft did not approach them for this domain ...

[URL unlinked – Tony]

Both whois and url are fine from Portugal

(Updated the post, thanks everyone)

Besides the technical aspect of why this has happend, the bigger problem is, that during that time, the "new owners" had access to the precious Google cookies!

And not by some page on a subdomain one has to lure users to. This concerns anyone using Google for search during that time.

I hope Google files criminal charges. Judging by the reports, Google made a mistake by not responding. There is no default "no" response by an automated system? Maybe it failed. Still, trying to transfer the Google domains is not something done by accident. It is a malicious intent.

BTW, the registrar of google.de / google.com is markmonitor.com. From their homepage:

Your corporate identity is fundamental to conducting business online.

Your name, logos, trademarks, and brands are valuable assets that
drive revenues, establish trust, and protect customer experience.
MarkMonitor is the global leader in creating and protecting corporate
identities on the Internet. We make the Internet safer for businesses
and their customers with end-to-end solutions that address the
growing threats of online fraud, brand abuse, and unauthorized
channels.

Learn why the world's leading corporations turn to MarkMonitor to
manage and protect identities on the Internet. Call today for a free
demonstration.

I guess we got a free demonstration all right.

Thanks a lot for the update Philipp

The french newspaper Le Monde ask information to Google Germany.
"The access to the site [google] was blocked from midnight to 2:00 AM, but we solve the problem quickly," said Stefan Keuchel. "The website is now back to Google, we are trying to find the cause of this issue" he added.
Le Monde confirms that the problem came from DeNIC. Le Monde remembers that eBay experimented the same problem in 2004, in that case the problem came from DeNIC too.

7-50,0.html" rel="nofollow" style="display: inline-block; max-width: 300px; overflow: hidden">http://www.lemonde.fr/web/depeches/0,14-0,39-294822777-50,0.html

Oops, seems there is a bug with the URL, because there is an "" in the URL.
There is a shortcut : http://t*i*n*y*u*r*l*.com/2eeb6y
(remove the "*")

not really amazing. my friend lost his .org domain registered in germany too. seems some german registrars don't care...

Tom, it is arguable if the problem lies within DENIC.

All domain related processes are automated at the registrars and denic side. The current registrar has to deny a transfer request sent, according to his setup, to his message queue at DENIC (pull) or sent to him by email (push) in a time limit. He gets reminded if he does not answer. After the time limit, the transfer is granted.

This policy was introduced when the end of the .com bubble left many domain owners stranded with dieing registrars who could not process the requests any more or did not care.

The process works well, as long as the registrars don't f*ck up. And markmonitor.com did.

i still have problems here to access to google.de .. i have to use the ip-adress of google.de instead

Philipp, you're too nice to edit their names out – they asked for this by trying to "steal" a domain name that they knew belonged to someone else. They exposed themselves. Protecting them was nice of you, but you shouldn't have.

At the DLD Conference in Munich on Tuesday Jan 23rd, Marissa Mayer, Google VP of Search Products and User experience was part of a panel. You can see the video at http://videos.dld-conference.com/ click Tuesday 11 AM. She explained that between 1.00 and 3 AM that morning, the domain for Google had indeed been transfered. They apparently called the guy out of bed and persuaded him that this wasn't the thing to do....;-)

That was weird. But everything is back to normal now.