Under what circumstances were the following domain names registered.
Who owns them. How much did the current owners pay for them (this part
of the question would be nice to know but is not required for a
complete answer, but please try your best to find out).

X.com
Q.com
Z.com

Thanks,
Joel

Hi,

Thanks for your question.

You can actually find out a lot about a domain name by checking out
the whois server of the registrar.

The 3 domains you mention were all registered with Network Solutions.
http://www.networksolutions.com
Saldy you cannot query their whois server straight away because they
don't allow you to run a query with a single character.

Luckily the Internic server allows you to do this. Here is what I
pulled out of it and the AOL server.



Information about X.com:
http://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois?whois_nic=x.com&type=domain
http://whois.registrar.aol.com/whois/whois.adp?name=x.com

As you can see from those pages, the owner is X.com Corporation, which
is a company that bought Paypal. For more information see here:
https://www.paypal.com/html/pr-040500.html

It was registered on 02-apr-1993 and will expire on 20-oct-2009 unless
it is renewed.



Information about Q.com:
http://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois?whois_nic=q.com&type=domain
http://whois.registrar.aol.com/whois/whois.adp?name=q.com

Similarly, Q.com is registered by Qwest Communications International
Inc., was created on 30-mar-1999 and will expire on 30-mar-2006 unless
it is renewed.

For more information about Qwest see here:
http://www.qwest.com/



Information about Z.com:
http://reports.internic.net/cgi-bin/whois?whois_nic=z.com&type=domain
http://whois.registrar.aol.com/whois/whois.adp?name=z.com

Z.com is registered by Nissan North America, was created on
19-dec-1997 and will expire on 18-dec-2003 unless it is renewed.

For more information about Nissan North America, see here:
http://www.nissan-na.com/


All these domains were registered with Network Solutions. Looking at
their website and their pricing scheme at:
http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/name-it/index.jhtml

You can see that domains typically cost $19 per year for 5 years or
$15 per year for 10 years or $35 per year if you register for just 1
year. Now Z.com seems to have been registered for 1 year then 5 years
explaining the 6 year total life, so you can work out the maximum
price that was paid.
Similarly with Q.com which seems to have been registered for 2 years
then 5 years, and X.com which seems to have been registered for 1,
then 5, then 10 years.

I mention maximum price because all these registrars are large
companies, that probably registered several domains at once and got a
discount from Network Solutions. Unfortunately I don't think it's
possible to find out how much they paid exactly but you should be able
to get a general idea.


I hope that answers your question, if you require any more information
or any clarifications, please do not hesitate to ask, I'll be more
than happy to help.
Thanks.

Regards,
endo


Search strategy:
whois registrar
://www.google.com/search?q=whois%20registrar

X.com Corporation bought paypal?  No, I didn't check any dates to see
if this was a long-time-ago deal, but didn't eBay just buy paypal?

Hi,

Yes, of course it was longer ago. The eBay/paypal deal is from
yesterday, the X.com Corporation deal is from 2000:
"X.com has acquired over 1 million customers in the four months since
its launch, including those of online payment provider PayPal, with
which X.com merged last month."
Quote from:
https://www.paypal.com/html/pr-040500.html

Thanks.
endo

Sorry, the eBay/Paypal merger was last year, silly me.
http://news.com.com/2100-1017-941964.html
Sorry for any confusion.

Thanks.
endo