> It is unknown what would have happened if sitefinder wasn't > in place when > the domain expired. It is known that MP3.com didn't notice > the domain was > being redirected to sitefinder. It took a user with a clue about > sitefinder to realize what had happened. The majority of > their users have > probably never heard of sitefinder and may have equated the sitefinder > page with the all too familiar file not found error page when > following > dead links.
The fact is that mp3s.com DID expire, it was mp3.com's fault, and their most basic business processes failed. It really shouldn't matter what reason it took a while for them to figure it out -- it could have been that they had a perfect monitoring system that alerted someone who was killed in a car crash. It's irrelevant. Their own record-keeping failed, and that's inexcusable.
