I was surprised to see melbourneIT up there since I live in the same city they're based in. I'm wondering why an American company is using an Australian registrar, can anyone enlighten me?
I checked their website and they offer both affiliate and reseller programs.
My best guess is that it's actually a 3rd party that sold the domains, yet a whois lookup returns the name of the parent company/true registrar.
From what I can remember, domains purchased through OpenSRS's white-label domain reseller program still reveal that Tucows is the registrar, regardless from what partner of theirs you bought it from.
I don't have any more insider knowledge than just seeing it discussed before, but Melbourne IT acquired Verisign's brand management service, which is where they picked up most of their big name clients: http://www.zdnet.com/melbourne-it-salvages-verisign-business...
