I posted the same thing yesterday, but I'm not sure it's true. This site doesn't let you delete or edit old posts.

The problem is that you can do the query in two different ways, and right now we're getting two different results. I'm not sure which one is accurate.

This article talks about the difference between the "thin" and "thick" whois searches:

https://medium.com/@digestize/all-you-need-to-know-about-linux-whois-command-domain-lookup-9d4f5b0b2bd1

Right now the thin query shows that the domain has been extended, but the thick query shows that it hasn't. I've been waiting for the thick record to be updated, so that it matches the thin one, but it hasn't, and enough time has passed that I think it ought to have, by now.

So I don't know what's going on. I think there are three possibilities, but this is pure speculation.

The first possibility is that it really has been renewed.

The second is that the thin record shows the extra year because GoDaddy has claimed it for themselves in the hopes that they'll be able to resell it for a high price on the secondary market.

The third is that this is somehow tied to the grace periods that people get when they don't renew their domains in time.

I think that the secondary market for expired domain names is pretty corrupt, and that insiders like GoDaddy manage to scoop up names that are valuable before the public at large gets a crack at them. In this way, they can mark them up quite a bit. But again, I don't really know.