Sony Forgets To Pay For Domain, Hilarity Ensues

First time accepted submitter Dragoness Eclectic writes Early Tuesday, gamers woke up to find out that they couldn't log in to any Sony Online Entertainment games--no Everquest, no Planetside 2, none of them. Oddly, the forums where company reps might have posted some explanation weren't reachable, either. A bit of journalistic investigation by EQ2Wire came across the explanation: SOE forgot to renew the domain registration on SonyOnline.net, the hidden domain that holds all their nameservers. After 7 weeks of non-payment post-expiration, NetworkSolutions reclaimed the domain, sending all access to Sony's games into an internet black hole. Sony has since paid up. SOE's president, John Smedley, has admitted that the expiration notices were being sent to an "unread email" address.

Comments

Black hole?

[djupedal]

Hole in someone's head, maybe - after all, a simple spreadsheet to track something this basic or a reminder in a calendar with alerts with someone assigned to keep an eye on things would take care of things like this. They're lucky it wasn't held hostage...

Re:Black hole?

[DigiShaman]

I've fucked up and forgot when an SSL cert was about to expire. I found out the next morning when their iPhones could no longer access the Exchange server. Shit happens. This time I include SSL, Domain, and Server hardware warranty expiration notices scheduled way in advanced in my calendar as an event.