A super premium domain name such as Main.com should never be renewed on a year to year basis.
Main.com was registered in November 1994, at a time when all domain registrations were free. As far as we can tell, the domain name Main.com has been registered continuously since 1994 to the same owner, Donald A. DiRosa, whose company Business Computer Specialists LLC is incorporated in Texas.
Although there hasn’t been much content displayed on Main.com in recent years, this page from 2011 demonstrates what was the purpose of the domain through the years:
The Digital MainStream was founded in June of 1994 by the network engineers and administrators of the Houston Advanced Research Center. At the time, we had been designing and managing University and Research Internet connections for years and the Internet had just opened up to commercial (non-research) traffic. We presented a series of public seminars about the Internet as part of the HARC lecture series and the response was quite overwhelming. The Digital MainStream was subsequently formed with the goal of providing the general public with the same dependable, high-quality Internet access that we had enjoyed for years in our research environment.
Since around 2012, the content on Main.com displayed the message “This page is intentionally left blank.” Whether this was a technical glitch or an intentional removal of web content, we are not sure. Things changed on or around September 20th, 2023, when the domain’s registrar, Network Solutions, displayed PPC ads and an ominous message on top:
“The domain main.com may be for sale. Please click here to inquire.”
But the domain was not listed for sale; it was simply a forced DNS change after the domain was not renewed and it had expired. Network Solutions jumped in, allocating this aged, super premium domain name to its domain warehousing sister, New Ventures Services.
Was there a failed credit card charge that led to this takeover of Main.com by New Ventures? We won’t know for sure. Its registrant lost control of the domain from August 29, 2023 and up until September 29, 2023. The domain had about 5 days left before it’d enter deletion and somehow its registrant renewed it.
Keeping a premium domain name such as Main.com at a registrar with a long history of account issues, would not be in the domain owner’s best interest, in our educated opinion.
