I was looking at DropCatch.com this morning, and the largest auction on the platform is GIBill.com. The high bid on GIBill.com is $1,700 with a little more than 2 days remaining in the auction. The GIBill.com domain name has quite an interesting history, and it looks like someone dropped the ball at some point in time to let this domain name expire.
According to a 2012 article on The US Department of Veterans Affairs website, the GIBill.com domain name was taken over by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as a result of a legal settlement. Here’s what was written in the VA.gov article from eight years ago:
“In a legal win for Veterans, VA is taking control of the formerly privately-owned website GIBill.com. This means Veterans will be better protected against deceptive marketing practices launched by businesses eager to cash in on the Post-9/11 GI Bill.”
In fact, the VA tweeted about taking over this domain name in July of 2012:
MT @ConwayforKY We did it! http://t.co/8fSA8Fvx no longer a for-profit college funnel. As of today, the website is in the hands of VA.
— Veterans Affairs (@DeptVetAffairs) July 10, 2012
The GIBill.com domain name had been owned by QuinStreet prior to the reported settlement. Interestingly, a Whois History search at DomainTools shows that QuinStreet was still the registrant of GIBill.com as recently as May of 2018. Following that, the Whois record was redacted due to GDPR regulations (Registrant listed as “Data Protected Data Protected”), so it is unclear who the registrant was at the time the domain name expired.
Here’s a screenshot of the landing page on GIBill.com following the settlement:
It would appear that the domain name expired within the past few months and was subsequently deleted. DropCatch.com then caught the domain name, which has a creation date of August 12, 2020. The highest bidder in the auction will take possession of the GIBill.com domain name at the conclusion of the auction.
If I were considering a bid on this domain name, I would look into its history to ensure it is used in a legal manner (if that is even possible).
(Update: GIBill.com sold for $4,000)
