Whois Hijacking Domain Research?

[haui]

see article here
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1991365,00.asp

also see
They Are Monitoring Your WhoIs Queries Challenge
http://www.webmasterworld.com/domain_names/3143997.htm

what do you guys think? is it going on?

[GTP Dave]

I myself believe this is blatantly happening...

[pam]

I checked on a domain I should have registered years ago. It was available and godnose why I didn't register it right there and then like usual, but I didn't. Next day I went to grab it and it was already registered. The company who owned it wanted $400 for it. I agreed to pay it and made the offer. Several days later they accepted my offer and I clicked a link they sent me to register it, and it was available. So, I paid $8.95 for it instead of $400.

It was being kited for that week.

The only place I checked the domain was the whois registry.

I've seen articles on another domain forum where they point out how the company that registers them and does the kiting is a registrar.

[Head Boy]

Some registrars are able to register domains and drop them within a few days for a full refund. This gives them a chance to test for traffic. It's why you see the same names appearing in drop lists at regular intervals, and why there are masses of 4 and 5 character names dropping daily. I suspect that they use registration searches as another way to pick up potential type-in names.

I used to be able to do this, but it now costs me $3 to drop a name, and it pisses me off a bit.

[seeandsee]

Where to fuck to check domain names then? It's hard if they are all up to you!

[Head Boy]

Originally Posted by seeandsee

Where to fuck to check domain names then? It's hard if they are all up to you!

OK - here are some tips.

Type it into your browser bar - if it resolves, it's registered.
Use dns report to see if it finds a name server.
Check for a country tld in the reg checker of a multi-reporting registrar.
Use the availability check inside your registrar's members area.

[sellingonline]

never had it happen while checking with internic, maybe just luck, but I think they maybe are honest

[Blinky]

I have wondered about this previously I've found names that were previously unregistered then after I add them to my short list they're gone when I go to purchase a few days later. Happened too often to be coincidence I think.

[pam]

Here is a really good article which explains domain kiting.

Like I said, my domain was a search portal for a few days, then magically was available. Had they been bright, they would have responded to me immediately and made $400 instead of the domain dropping, but they could have made more in those few days from searches -- who knows?

http://www.bobparsons.com/DomainKiting.html

[Head Boy]

Post edited out by Head Boy out of respect for Netpond.

[glowlite]

Originally Posted by Head Boy

Some registrars are able to register domains and drop them within a few days for a full refund. This gives them a chance to test for traffic. It's why you see the same names appearing in drop lists at regular intervals, and why there are masses of 4 and 5 character names dropping daily. I suspect that they use registration searches as another way to pick up potential type-in names.

I used to be able to do this, but it now costs me $3 to drop a name, and it pisses me off a bit.

Not some registrars, all registrars have a refund period with the registry, not a few days, exactly 5 days, more specifically 120 hours. It's an automated process for the most part. I've never heard of a registrar that holds a 4-5 char domain for less than the full refund period (5 days). Other than maintaining a revolving deposit fund with the registry it costs the registrar nothing to refund a domain. The fact they charge you $3 is no surprise, the fact they even allow you to request a refund is surprise enough. That $3 charge would prevent a reseller from churning domains every 119 hours though.

Yes, I believe there are several registrars and many many more resellers who monitor and take advantage of domain searches. Pam is a first hand example.

[Head Boy]

The original idea of the 5-day cancellation was to allow registrants to cancel a registration that was made in error - An accidental typo for example. It's a great shame that once again cheaters and abusers have deprived us of a useful option.
(and left the option available to greedy organisations abusing their privileged positions).

[Head Boy]

Originally Posted by pam

I checked on a domain I should have registered years ago. It was available and godnose why I didn't register it right there and then like usual, but I didn't. Next day I went to grab it and it was already registered. The company who owned it wanted $400 for it. I agreed to pay it and made the offer. Several days later they accepted my offer and I clicked a link they sent me to register it, and it was available. So, I paid $8.95 for it instead of $400.

It was being kited for that week.

The only place I checked the domain was the whois registry.

I've seen articles on another domain forum where they point out how the company that registers them and does the kiting is a registrar.

Which whois service did you use? It would be useful to know which ones we should avoid.

I'd be interested to know the registrar that deleted a domain immediately after they had offered it for sale for $400, surely if you were prepared to pay that much it would have been getting a bit of type-in traffic?

[pam]

I only use the whois service. The domain is a name of one of my models but it's a generic name -- unlike, say, Shaneequa or Matilda -- and I have no idea if it gets type-in traffic or not.

They didn't delete it immediately. It was kited, as I said. Within 5 days it was deleted and dropped because they never bothered to respond to my email in a timely fashion.

[Hentaikid]

Whoa that sucks. I've been lucky but I do get paranoid wondering if my domain browsing is being logged and it may lose me a name... hasn't happened so far

then again these guys probably go after mainstream domains and I tend to look at stuff with adult keywords in them