legal for registrars to speculate and reserve domain names?

Submitted by dtbaker61 on Wed, 2008-01-30 17:29.

I had an odd thing happen yesterday... I queryied the networksolutions.com WHOIS database to check on availability of a specific domain for a client; it was availabe.

Today the client asked me to go ahead and register the domain, but lo and behold, networksolutions.com has registered it, and there is no associated website. Is this coincidence? Did they use my query to automatically 'taste' the domain on the odds that i would be trying to register it and force me to BUY it from them?

In a more general sense... what IS the policy for resolving situations where registrars, or individuals reserve 'likely' domain names with no intention of creating websites? It might be difficult to police this with indivuals since they could put up a simple one-pager saying that the name was for sale. BUT for a registrar to use a WHOIS query to register a domain before you can get to it seems highly unethical.

CAN we control this practice? CAN we make registrars 'release' tasted domains that they do not intend to actually use?

Comments

Front Running

Submitted by Paul Russell on Mon, 2008-02-04 10:36.

Just lost two domains by using whois on Network Solutions. They are clearly using their whois to force people to register with them. Is this within the rules? Surly it cannot be that by checking a name you lose it? These people should be kicked off the system pronto. If ICANN cannot do it then the EU should.

I have just experienced

Submitted by lee on Fri, 2008-02-01 02:10.

I have just experienced exactly the same thing. I have proof of searches that I performed this morning at Network Solutions - about 50 or so domains. Within hours I was ready to register the ones I wanted, but to my horror they were already taken BY NETWORK SOLUTIONS!?!? Of the approx 50 domains I searched for, 30 of those were COMs and were now registered... I was not even able to get ONE of them. The other 20 or so domains they did not register were NET or ORG and obviously were not what network solutions were interested in.

Clearly disgusting behaviour and I'm ready to take it further. I'm incredibly shocked.

It's called front running

Submitted by kieren.mccarthy on Wed, 2008-01-30 17:48.

Hi dtbaker,

This is called front-running and it has become an issue of some discussion over the past fortnight.

ICANN is looking at it and has already been in conversation with many of the relevant parties. Expect some discussion of it at the Delhi meeting in just over a week.

Kieren

whatever you want to call

Submitted by dtbaker61 on Wed, 2008-01-30 18:09.

whatever you want to call it, I think it is completely unethical for an entity offering a WHOIS lookup to use queries to jump on available domains and force people to buy them for more than the going rate.

Seems like this kind of business practice would be grounds to remove a registrar from the list, or hold some type of sanction.

Dan Baker

Possibly

Submitted by kieren.mccarthy on Thu, 2008-01-31 08:38.

Well, that's what ICANN is looking at.

Btw if you do a Google search on "front running" you will see that it has had enormous attention both in the press and the industry itself recently.

I don't know what the upshot will be, but ICANN is looking into the situation. If a registry or registrar breaks their agreement with ICANN, then they are liable to sanction, but the situation is not even near that at this time.

ICANN believes in a free and flexible and competitive market so that the Internet can continue to grow, expand and amaze without hindrance, so the effort is to allow for self-regulation wherever possible.

If those efforts fail, and the community believes there remains a problem, ICANN will do what it needs to to fix the situation.

Kieren