Is someone monitoring my domain searches?

[NostraDomainus]

I've had the same suspicious feelings from surfing various registrars (Moniker being one of them - whom I never use anymore; as much as I don't trust Verisign themselves either in this area (ex: www.TV)) after having time and time again, names registered within 24 hours of me searching it on their sites vs. other registrars having been sound as a pound (ex: idotz.net).

Do I have exact proof of this - No, of course not - I would almost have to be Moniker or Verisign myself to get such proof, as drawing inferences from piecemealed observations can only be considered speculation (yet more than coincidence) at this point.

I always thought this was 1/2 being paranoid on my part to 1/2 being the truth based on the fact I am not naive enough to think all theses Money driven businesses are keeping my best interest in mind at all times - I'm glad to hear it's not me just being paranoid.

Price of Freedom (in this case, the pursuit of Good Faith business) is eternal Vigilance - you may never stop searching and watching over that which is rare and special, as it may be taken from you at any moment.

I do believe thou - The Internet is the largest Scam on Earth.

Like the facade of democracy in capitalistic societies, greed will always challenge individual rights and respect - imo.

With that said, I'm back to the World Cup...

Best Success in ALL Your Endeavours!

[Avensen]

People beware! These scammers work really_fast (2-3 days and your idea is stolen). I'm starting to suspect that top-level WHOIS servers operators may be involved in this scam.

Don't procrastinate with your new domain names registrations! Consequences can be very frustrating. Good luck!

[DNWizardX9]

Yup this has been going on for a while.......

Kenyatech = directnic.com (They are a registrar that has been doing domain kiting, regging names ppl are looking up etc)

[petrosc]

directnic is also the owner of parked.com (although I am very satisfied with their parking program)

[DomainFatigue]

It's happened to me a bunch of times and I only use GoDaddy.com and Whois.sc

Maybe they just register all avilable domains and it's coincidence, but I've often wondered...

If they do monitor searches, at least they haven't yet taken it to the next level and put up domain name sales pages!

[YOYOYO]

I've had this experience as far back in 98' and 99' when it was just netsol

While my first feeling was, wow, there has to be something going on here, what it really comes down to i believe is, there's a reason i, you or anyone else are searching and speculating on a certain domain, something that's in the news or a name related to another popular site, some information you came across somewhere.

So if one person, as yourself, has come across this information, so most likely have others, and with the competition today and people actively searching for anything that would translate into a good domain name, things just go fast fast....fast

[mistermouse63]

i know a european ccTLD registrar that monitors searches done on its website (at least i suspect so) and then reg good names. This happened twice already. I found two good names, but I didnt reg them... just wanted to do that at the end of the week. when i checked later i found out the names are already gone. the company regged them. so i would say yes, it's not surprising there might be more companies doing this

[mondala]

Kenyatech, ,, I'm just researching this now as I noticed Kenyatech has registered a small ontario canada city .org url,,,, What interest they have in a little ontario canada town baffles me.

So far it seems that kenyatech is tied to LA, USA, tied to directnic, aka sig solares.


http://www.rootfest.net/squatters.html

http://www.rederon.net/attention-all...atech-victims/

http://www.kenyatechwatch.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Solares

"Sigmund Solares has been the focus of controversy because his business has been accused of cybersquatting and trademark infringement, using its status as a registrar to acquire domains for little or no cost the instant they expire and then selling them back to the original owners. The WIPO has ruled against them in over 200 domain name disputes."

Huge listed of big name sites that we should now be careful with of including netsol, directnic, etc.


I think we have a issue on our hands where the people a top of whois records/queries, registar owners etc. are going to fix the system entirely. So the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Everyday people that want to create a website with a neat niche name or everyday people that want to open a business website etc etc will have no choice but to pay $5000 rather then $10 or just be satisfied with http://www.nichename5033333335stilla...thisoneyet.com

[Acidztrip]

I recently searched a two word combination domain name... good one actually... I used a tool that I believe is owned by a member of the forum...anyhow I searched it 2 days consecutively ...once in the morning and once in the evening...and it got snatched by .... domibot.com ... so I went to that site and the few words on there I think make it clear. Now I'm not saying the member that owns this tool, which I like to use, is associated with the domain snatching problem but maybe the site is being used by the other bot.

JMHO

[petrosc]

actually domainbot took a name a few seconds after I searched for it

[Dale Hubbard]

Petrosc, do you mind sharing? Can you tell us the name of that domain and where/how you searched for it before it was taken?

[Fearless]

If it weren't for catch and release, none of this would go on. Check after 5 days if these names you searched for are available again.

[petrosc]

actually I am not sure which service I used to search for the domain. It was one of two, that I use all the time. I would not like to share which domain it was nor the services I used because I still believe in conincidences, and pointing fingers in a forum such as this, may have very a bad effect on a company.

pm sent

If it weren't for catch and release, none of this would go on. Check after 5 days if these names you searched for are available again.

you were right, the name domainbot grabbed that day is free again

[Dale Hubbard]

There's a way to stop this when searching availability for .com .net .edu .cc .tv .jobs domains. Get a whois client that allows you to specify which whois server to use with lookups. Then specify rs.internic.net (or 198.41.0.6 [on port 43 if asked]) as the whois server. Or for a web lookup, use this:

http://registrar.verisign-grs.com/whois/

[petrosc]

thanks for the advice Dale cheers, Petros

[Ian]

it is really unethical for registrars to monitor and register under selfish motivations, what potential clients searche for. This is really a conflict of interests. Does anybody have an idea about what could be done to stop this egregious crime being committed by some registrars especially Kenyatech?

[petrosc]

it is really unethical for registrars to monitor and register under selfish motivations, what potential clients searche for. This is really a conflict of interests. Does anybody have an idea about what could be done to stop this egregious crime being committed by some registrars especially Kenyatech?

When personal interests are involved, especially money, only a handful of people will concider ethics as a criterium for his next move, especially if he can get away with it(just like the registrars).

Anwyay, I would also like to know what can be done to stop this crime

[MonikerMan]

Moniker does NOT monitor and release whois or registry look up data. We feel this is a complete invasion and violation of our customers privacy. There are many registrars that do this. They sell this data and/or register these domains for themselves.

[Avensen]

Guys, this scum happens somewhere at the top of the WHOIS servers organization. Any case may not be linked to a particular domain registrar. I believe there is a "master" .com WHOIS server farm which contains the latest, up-to-date data and used by all domain registrars to check domain names availability in real time. Since WHOIS queries are not secure scammers can be anywhere. It’s very easy to install a network sniffer software on a mirrored network switch/router port, filter out traffic by domain registrar’s IP and WHOIS port. Of course the probability that WHOIS database admins log our queries is even greater, because it’s even easier.

So, let’s see who can be involved:

Domain registrar’s website admins.
Domain registrar’s database admins.
Domain registrar’s network admins.
Domain registrar’s internet provider’s admins.
Top-level WHOIS servers’ database admins.
Top-level WHOIS servers’ network admins.
Top-level WHOIS servers’ internet provider’s admins.

The only way we can stop this crime is to build a distributed system to generate random (fake, noise) WHOIS queries using dictionary words, patterns and so on. Each domain registrar should use a similar system too to protect their customers from “man in the middle” attacks. I think such “false target” system would make scummers’ dirty work much harder.

[petrosc]

The only way we can stop this crime is to build a distributed system to generate random (fake, noise) WHOIS queries using dictionary words, patterns and so on. Each domain registrar should use a similar system too to protect their customers from “man in the middle” attacks. I think such “false target” system would make scummers’ dirty work much harder.

Very nice suggestion Avensen!