It looks like Chicago.com may have be bought by the Chicago Sun-Times.
The site was updated recently and now the Chicago Sun-Times is all over it, including on the front page where it says “brought to you by the Chicago Sun- Times.com”
Chicago.com which has been an operating site for many years is now showing being in Beta as a newly re-launched site would be.
The servers on the domain name were also recently updated to STABLETRANSIT.COM according to the whois records on DomainTools.com.
The owner of the domain name for many years was listed as Chicago.com,Inc. but changed late last year to Things to Do Chicago, Inc.
Chicago.com has been selling email addresses and subdomains for a while, but as of August 1, you need to be a “Chicago Sun-Times Premium Member” to get a Chicago.com email address
Paragraph 13 of the TOS of the Premium Membership for the Chicago Sun-Times says:
Premium Members are eligible to claim one free @Chicago.com email address. A @Chicago.com free email address requires active Premium Membership to activate and at all times to use. … Redemption requires an existing email account to forward to. Chicago.com and Company reserve the right to change or cancel this offer at any time. For complete offer details, please visit: suntimes.chicago.com .”
I reached out to a representative from Chicago.com and got a “no comment”
If the Sun-Times in fact bought Chicago.com that will be the second time in just a few weeks that a new owner took over city.com domain name.
Last week the Boston Globe sold along with Boston.com for $70 million dollars.
This certainly will not please the owners of the Chicago Tribune, which back in an April Story seemed to have reached an agreement with Chicago.com on some sort of partnership on the sale of .Chicago Subdomains.
Speaking of The Chicago Tribune, they even blew there chance to get the domain name TheChicagoTribune.com which dropped just days ago and now instead goes to a Godaddy Placeholder.…