Today I was able to uncover a $2 million transaction in 2010 for the Chatter.com domain name, using a combination of the SEC’s EDGAR database and the historical WHOIS data at DomainTools.com.
On page FF-10 of a SEC filing by Quepasa Corporation in 2011, they disclosed that:
The Company sold a domain name in 2010 for $2,000,000, resulting in a gain of $1,895,000 that is presented as a component of other income on the statement of operations.
However, the SEC filing did not disclose the actual domain name that changed hands! That took some additional work.
Using the reverse WHOIS search capabilities of DomainTools (which can also include historical data!), I was able to find all the domain names that were ever owned by Insider Guides, Inc. (page FF-10 was related to that specific division of Quepasa Corporation). Carefully examining the list of domain names and the historical WHOIS, I identified Chatter.com as the relevant domain name that they sold in 2010 to internet giant SalesForce.com.
In particular, the November 9, 2010 historical WHOIS record shows that Chatter.com was still registered to Insider Guides, Inc., but the November 19, 2010 historical WHOIS record shows that the nameservers had changed to those operated by SalesForce.com (since the CCPA became law in California, DomainTools has been redacting California records, so that’s all they show given SalesForce.com is based in California). Archive.org records also shows that the Chatter.com domain name was redirecting to SalesForce at that time).
When the SEC upgraded its full text search of SEC filings, it enabled researchers to more easily discover historic domain name transactions, as I’ve noted previously. I hope that others use this wonderful resource to uncover other previously undisclosed domain name transactions.