There must be a set of Sen. Ted Stevens’ tubes connecting Whois to these guys.
Whois Hijacking My Domain Research?
It all started with a message from a reader. She was planning to put a Web site up and needed to register a domain name.
She chose to use her first and last names for the domain (just as I own larryseltzer.com) and checked it on at least one service for availability.
She went back in a day or two to register it and, lo and behold, it had just been registered to an outfit named Chesterton Holdings.
[…]
So the question remains: How did Chesterton Holdings get hold of the reader’s domain name and register it before she did? Is it part of this mysterious “automated process”?
I decided to run some tests, so I picked three names out of the air and checked them with the CNet Domain Search page including myfuzzycat.com and lickmynose.com.
I let the matter go and about 30 hours later I checked with a separate whois service and determined that the domains belonged to Chesterton Holdings.
The same ad-based Web pages were up on them.
So, set up a script to search for randomly generated domain names (built from a dictionary). That’ll force any automatic registration engines to essentially buy every worthless domain that can be concieved of. How’s that for escallating this domain squatting crap.
Searching on these clowns gets beaucoup hits about being a spam source, as well. All the ethics of a pimp.
Someone must have touched a nerve because when I tried both sites, they were both down.
Don’t you just love the American way of free enterprise? I sure get that warm fuzzy feeling knowing the system works, AND without the need for any government regulation.
BTW. I understand that spam operators claim a domain, set it up, go to work and as soon as their check bounces with the registrar, close up shop. That is one reason spam filters have a hard time keeping up. The domain names change so often and quickly.
Yep, I had this happen to me early this year tried to register a name did a search a couple days before hand and bingo it was picked up by a squatter.
they don’t even have to wait for a check to bounce… its called kiting, when they register a domain, then within the 5 day grace that most people don’t know about, they refund the registration, then register it again…. they can keep a domain indefinitely without actually paying for it this way
To 5., O.K., Now that really bites. That’s the kind of thing for which I really advocate government regulation–and I don’t like government regulation.
BTW: Don’t test your domain until you register. Check for similar names with Googles inurl or site options. For example, no hits with:
inurl:mynewidea
But, lots of hits with:
inurl:newidea
Enterprise, just like information, wants to be free?
We are running one of the most unregulated economies, and finding that greed is the most powerful free market motivation. The notion that the market is self correcting is a limited truth. Like trickle down economics. By the time we figure out that regulation is necessary, we will find that it is close, if not already, too late. Money buys power, and the regulations it chooses.
The internet just reflects the country’s economics as a whole: “I’m making mine, f you jack.”
I don’t think this is news. When I find that using a ~name from my ISP doesn’t fit my needs, I’m not even going to do a google search for the (of course very original) domain name before registering it! And this story isn’t so much different from software patents. They might call it the three Rs: “research”, register, and relax. The carefree life of a parasite.
Setting-up a script that would make them buy every domain name generated wouldn’t work. These guys cancel non money making names within the 5 day grace period so never end up actually paying for them anyway.
I’ve had this happen to me. My question is how do they get the name of the domain that you enter into a registrar’s site when you’re checking for availability? They’d either have to be watching the registrar’s packets or that registrar would have to be supplying the info. Both cases sound illegal to me.
According to number 9, the solution is to wait the 5 days until the grace period expires and then buy your domain name.
The script idea might still work because if Chesterson registers a billion domain names a week and cancels them all, the registrar may stop dealing with them.
The registrar shouldn’t take cheques.
http://www.chestertonholdings.com/
has a form if you want to claim that you have rights to a website. Wonder how much bandwidth they’ve got? If a lot of hits would be a problem for them? Just, you know, wondering…
very subtle #13…… 🙂
After hours on Google, at last I got to your site. I wonder what is the Google’s problem that doesn’t rank on first page good websites like yours. Usually the top websites are full of crap.