Is someone monitoring my domain searches?

[brian1234]

Hi

I've been looking up a few names which
are available one day...THEN when I check
on them again a day or two later they are
suddenly gone!

I do believe in coincidences, but don't think
this can be one as this has happened too
often now for it to be that.

The names are hardly 'top draw', which of
course is why they are/were still available.
I don't think I have any virus's on my pc,
so my question is 'Can people track domain
searches generally on the net?'.

Regards

[Dale Hubbard]

Fascinating! Brian, where are you searching? Registrar? Whois client or site? Can you give an example of a couple of these domains?

[petrosc]

this happened to me twice this month!

I found a domain name with ovt, a typo of magicvideos.com (msgicvideos.com). I didnt try to buy it right away, but 2 days later, when i had $$ in my account. Suprisingly it was gone.

2 days ago, I wanted to reg pokerocea.com, typo of pokerocean.com(a brand new poker site). I didnt reg it the day i found it, tried to reg it the next day. It was gone!

I dont want to state the registrar I use to do my changes as I dont want to point any fingers without being sure. This is a very weird situation though and if this continues I will let you all know

[brian1234]

Hi Dale

Thanks for your reply.

I am searching under Easyspace.com, Domainsite.com
and DD24.net, since they are the guys I normally use
to reg. names.

I don't think I can give the exact names, but the most
recent one was today (I had only searched for it 18hrs
ago! - max.. and, lo, it has now been regged by Nokta
Internet in the USA).

Nokta Internet, and Kenyatech are the companies who
are doing the regging and, as I say, I don't have any
virus's on my system and the chances of anyone else
wanting or desiring these names would be a rarer than
rocking horse s*&t being found on the moon...

Help me out guys, i'm scared to search for names now!!!

Hey petrosc,

I think you are seeing the same problem (I
mean, honestly, what are the chances of
someone else wanting 'msgicvideos.com' in
the same timeframe as you??!!!).

[WeBuyThe.Com]

I dont want to state the registrar I use to do my changes as I dont want to point any fingers without being sure. This is a very weird situation though and if this continues I will let you all know

SOLUTION: Stop using them for lookups - use network solutions' whois tool for the time being. See if the same coincidence occurs. Where are you getting your names? From an expireds list or are you making them up?

It would be nice to know the name of the registrar so others don't fall victim to this..

[ColdGin]

Im scared to continue looking for domains!!!..,,

I think some of the registars are looking the list of the searches of the day and then decide to keep part of them....if thats truth...

[Dale Hubbard]

Well, the magicvideos typo might be to do with the fact there are 194,000 results on google for the quoted phrase "magic videos" and of course people are looking for the typos. As WeBuy asked, are you regging from expireds? If so, that would also explain it to an extent as you won't be the only one.

If you're still in doubt, use a prominent registrar's whois lookup, again as WeBuy suggests.

Let us know here if anything else untoward shows up.

[demo]

I have felt the same way that my inquries were being monitored. Of course it is very possible they save all the searches to a table and review them.

Nothing illegal about that. - Google does this all the time...

What I have always wanted is a place where i could do a search of existing domains by letter. For example if I typed in 'ex' I would get all the domains which began with those characters. That way I could easily pick the names I want.

[Dale Hubbard]

What I have always wanted is a place where i could do a search of existing domains by letter. For example if I typed in 'ex' I would get all the domains which began with those characters. That way I could easily pick the names I want.

Demo, do you mean check against a list of currently registered domains so that you can pick unregged variants?

[italiandragon]

goodmorning people, it`s an old mistery but it`s not a mistery.

Everyday more and more Registrars are starting to wonder "what if I start buying what my customers want and the I offer that to them by an auction? If Pool, Sibername, Snapnames, ClubDrop do this, why not me? "

So basically, even GoDaddy and many others, are potentially tracking all the whois queries that people do.

It happened to me too and since then I usually check domain names straight to the source: the registry. Or if It`s available, I reg it immediately.

[brian1234]

Well, the names i've been looking for certainly
haven't been on any drop list, and without
referring to the actual domains, I am the only
person who would ever want them...

(they're not 'typo' names, generics, cute brand
names, or anything of the kind).

I am going to re-check my pc thoroughly, and
hope I don't find any 'key logging' software
or other virus! Oh, and WeBuy's idea about
checking 'whois' (to see if registered), rather
than doing a normal search is a very good idea.

..in fact, that is probably the only thing I am
going to do in the future.

Regards

[emark]

What I have always wanted is a place where i could do a search of existing domains by letter. For example if I typed in 'ex' I would get all the domains which began with those characters. That way I could easily pick the names I want.

demo, you can try JustDropped.com.

[Dale Hubbard]

Depends what type of 'whois' client you're using. If it's a referring system, it will first check the whois root at rs.internic.net, and then make a secondary referral to the whois server of the registrar. The risks discussed above still apply, as the registry server can keep a record of the search.

What you need is a whois server that does NOT do referrals.

Web: http://www.internic.net/whois.html

*nix command line: whois -h rs.internic.net domain.com

[Avensen]

Recently I had a bad experience with a registrant (not sure if it was GoDaddy or Gandi). The leaked domain is clubno.com. Someone named 'Matthew Hesser' got in 3 or 4 days after my checks. Of course, this could be a coincidence.

[demo]

Demo, do you mean check against a list of currently registered domains so that you can pick unregged variants?

Exactly...

If i see that blue1.com and blue3.com are taken I could reg blue2.com.

I had a look at justdropped, nice... not exactly what i am looking for but a good resource!

[brian1234]

Depends what type of 'whois' client you're using. If it's a referring system, it will first check the whois root at rs.internic.net, and then make a secondary referral to the whois server of the registrar. The risks discussed above still apply, as the registry server can keep a record of the search.

What you need is a whois server that does NOT do referrals.

Web: http://www.internic.net/whois.html

*nix command line: whois -h rs.internic.net domain.com

Great, thanks for that, i'll remember them.

[Dale Hubbard]

Exactly...

If i see that blue1.com and blue3.com are taken I could reg blue2.com.

I had a look at justdropped, nice... not exactly what i am looking for but a good resource!

I can do this. If anyone wants this then please post here. Given enough requests I'll implement it.

Thanks.

[Banned: nicpal]

I have had this problem consistently but it was always KenyaTech registering all the domain names I looked up. I was typically doing a search for available domains on GoDaddy and if available, the next day they would be regged by KenyaTech. I thought that it was way too much of a coincidence and then found that a colleague of mine who registers in the same domain market as I do had the same thing happening to him, although he was searching via Moniker. He said that KenyaTech would register the domain and then it would become available again a short time later (usually a couple of weeks). Sure enough he was right. So are people monitoring your searches? You better believe it.

[Dale Hubbard]

Traffic tasting -- it goes on all the time but I hesitate to lay blame at any door.

[petrosc]

SOLUTION: Stop using them for lookups - use network solutions' whois tool for the time being. See if the same coincidence occurs. Where are you getting your names? From an expireds list or are you making them up?

It would be nice to know the name of the registrar so others don't fall victim to this..

I made a mistake before, it was msgicmovies.com and not msgicvideos.com. That was a typo with ovt 25.
I am registering ovt typos for some time now, I have many sources, one of them being alexa. I never make names up... but i dont reg from expireds either...i never did