Who's About To Get Fired From Google?

We’ve been getting a number of tips that say Grandcentral.com has been down for some users, and that their domain name is set to expire today.

We’ve done our best to confirm, and we believe that these rumors have some merit:

a) EasyDNS is the registrar of record for Grandcentral.com
b) EasyDNS’s WHOIS record shows that Grandcentral.com’s domain expires today, May 20th
c) EasyDNS has already taken over the DNS for the domain
d) The DNS server does not have an IP address for Grandcentral.com
e) For many people, Grandcentral.com isn’t working
f) Grandcentral seems to be working for users that access the site through its IP address: http://216.239.37.52

While some users may still be able to access the site, this may be because of a delay in DNS propagation. If Google has let the domain expire, then these users won’t be able to use the site by this time tomorrow.

This isn’t the first time that Grandcentral has run into problems. Last month the service was down for hours – a luxury that a phone company can’t afford.

We should note that even if the domain has expired, Google will still have a grace period to remedy the situation. That said, if the lapse proves to be real, it would be an embarrassing move on Google’s part.

Update: Google has renewed the domain for a year. Nice save!