The answer, according to knowledgeable FIDE people to whom I have been speaking, is that Artiom Tarasov hijacked the domain name.
Tarasov, who was Kirsan Ilyumzhinov's right hand man until recently, was kicked out of FIDE Commerce after he failed to pay the guaranteed prizes at a grandmaster tournament in Dubai. Since Tarasov is the registered owner of the FIDE.ORG domain name, he simply took advantage of this situation and disabled the website, thereby holding the domain name hostage to FIDE.
Proof of this is that his registration of the domain name is being updated daily. See below: The current registration is dated 17-Jul-2002, which is today.
To check on the current status of this domain name, go to http://www.netsol.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois http://www.netsol.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois?STRING=fide.org&SearchType=do&STRING2.x=27&STRING2.y=7
The same thing happened to me last year when somebody hijacked my original domain name, which was ishius.com , which I have had since 1993. I still have not been able to get it back.
Tarasov is probably demanding a large amount of money and, once FIDE pays, he will give back the domain name.
This sort of problem has become a common occurrence. I have read that a domain name court has been set up to resolve disputes of this sort. Does anybody know how or where to contact it?
Sam Sloan
Registrant:
TARASOV, ARTIOM (FIDE5-DOM)
175 Piccadilly, Empire House
LONDON, GL W1V 9DB
GB
Domain Name: FIDE.ORG
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Ruslan, Mahamashev (MR15765) adm@DATA.RU
Internet Stolitca
Sadovnicheskay 46 4
Moscow, 123456
RU
+7 095 9512044 (FAX) +7 095 9512044
Record expires on 04-Jan-2004.
Record created on 04-Jan-2000.
Database last updated on 17-Jul-2002 08:58:02 EDT.