The United States Chess Federation seems to have let it’s exact match domain name expire, and it’s now scheduled to hit the Snapnames auction block. USChessFederation.com expired on February 8, 2010 and it is scheduled to be auctioned on March 18th. The auction currently has one bid.
Although the US Chess Federation uses USChess.org for it’s primary website, this domain name has been owned by the organization since February of 2000. From the looks of it, it appears that they either didn’t realize they owned this domain name or they simply forgot to renew the domain name, since they originally registered it for ten years back in 2000.
I really don’t know how someone would be able to use this domain name legitimately. It’s one thing if the domain name was USChess.com as that could be used as a website for US chess players, but this one seems too specific to be used by someone other than the US Chess Federation.
OMG – those poor chess players might have to switch to checkers (when they are not watching Star Trek) 😉