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You mean this guy who got a cheque for $500 and a bunch of software for a problem that took him 2 minutes and $35 to address?

Nice! I like the fact that it was a linux user who paid the renewal fee and got passport.com back up again, allowing further logins into hotmail. Linky to credit card receipt of individual user : The lapse, which was first reported on the Internet news service Slashdot.org, was apparently caused when Microsoft's registration for the Passport.com domain name expired sometime Dec. 24, Chaney said. The Passport.com site verifies user identification and passwords for access to Hotmail and about 25 other services, according to Chaney. Chaney said he paid the bill Dec. 25 at about 2 p.m. EST and was given invoice #11395965 documenting the transaction. An electronic copy of the receipt can be viewed at his Web site at "www.doublewide.net."

Actually, they only ponied up $500 when they fucked up and let passport.com expire 6 years ago...an event that made hotmail.com very useless: Read about it here

You'd think that a company as large as MS would have people do that, but then you'd think that MS would have people renew their domain registration. But they didn't. Twice. All big companies miss the details now and then.

I think the original article was referring to the incident of 1999 where Microsoft forgot to renew the registration of passport.com domain, which obviously also made hotmail.com inaccessible.

Some Slashdotter then paid the domain renewal and soon the site was back up =)

Owners of small domains, beware: no more computerless vacations that last more than 4 days at a time!"

I could see this happening to larger domains easier than smaller ones. Microsoft has already lost domains because the re-registration got "lost in the mail". Maybe the next time, the one who snags it won't be as nice to return it so promptly and without a legal battle.

Especially for MS, as they are always forgetting to renew their domain names ...

HEre is the website where you can find info about the company that purchaced the check on ebay.

As for your username... nothing I can do to find it :)

Well according to that guy's page...

On January 15, 2000, I received the check from Microsoft for $500, in addition to a new copy of Visual Studio 6.0 (which I need to compile and run the decss program to decode my DVD's so that I can play them under Linux). I put the check up on ebay to raise money for charity.

Well, at least I payed the Internic bill in December.
Back in December when Michael Chaney payed for passport.com, I payed the bill for microsoft.NET.
See for yourself! http://www.worldwidewait.com/ms/ms.html
No, I never received a check like Michael did...

Why did you do this?

I did it to see what would happen if I did it, and I did it to help Hotmail users. It's been the most fun I've ever had for $35.

There has been some confusion, so let me state now that I had none of the following motivations:
To get to my Hotmail- While it's true that I noticed the problem while trying to get to my Hotmail, that wasn't a motivation. Like many people, I use Hotmail as a spam trap and alternative email which I check once every couple of weeks. I own enough domain names to have cooler email addresses, like mdchaney@michaelchaney.com.

There's more, but that answers your allegation -- if he's telling the truth, and why wouldn't he?

Why did you do this?

I did it to see what would happen if I did it, and I did it to help Hotmail users. It's been the most fun I've ever had for $35.

There has been some confusion, so let me state now that I had none of the following motivations:
To get to my Hotmail- While it's true that I noticed the problem while trying to get to my Hotmail, that wasn't a motivation. Like many people, I use Hotmail as a spam trap and alternative email which I check once every couple of weeks. I own enough domain names to have cooler email addresses, like mdchaney@michaelchaney.com.

There's more, but that answers your allegation -- if he's telling the truth, and why wouldn't he?

Oops, its http://www.doublewide.net

http://www.doublewide.net/passport.htm

Also earge(mailto:mdchaney@doublewide.net) Michael to contact someone in the media regarding this story. It would make a wonderful headline.

"Generous Linux user pays past-due domain fee"
"Bill Gates recieves charity from generous Linux user"
"Worlds richest man doesn't pay his bills"
..the list goes on. .
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