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Somebody is trolling for domain names

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Last week I read a blog entry by some guy who was starting a new project. He had an odd name for his project, and he searched a few times to make sure the domain name was available. The next day, when he went to buy it, it was taken! He was convinced that somebody was intercepting domain searches and then "poaching" the domain names in order to re-sell them at a higher rate.

I thought this guy was a little off his rocker. I mean, what are the odds that this would be a good business model? And to top it off, the company that was doing it was a very well-known company.

And then it happened to me.

I also am working on a new project. It has an odd name, so I searched last week to make sure nobody had it. Nope. The coast was clear.

Today, however, I started worrying about the availability of the name. What if someobdy took it? So I went to lock in while the getting was good. And guess what. Somebody had my domain as well.

Now I'm not talking about SantaClaus.com or something like that. This guy and I both had names that aren't likely to be used by somebody else.

Perhaps I am on the paranoid side, but count me a believer. Somebody is intercepting domain searches and then squatting on the names. I believe it is somebody at Network Solutions, but I can't be sure. I certainly hope it is not a company-sponsored activity.

If you've read this far, you should follow me on twitter here.



3 Comments

Damn! You can't have any privacy anymore! Trust no one!

I am an IT consultant, and part of my job is to set up domains for a large client.

I got poached, but in a different way.

A company called ARCEMUS LLC (which I found on a Google search was bought out by Iron Mountain) started to hit all my domains... trying to get my client to to a Domain Transfer.

grrr.... just causes confusion for all the good people.

I'm hoping this blog entry gets some attention and let us stop the this unethical behaviour.

This has happened to me before as well. There are so many scams being worked in the domain industry right now it's just absurd. You know about "kiting" or "tasting"? They don't even have to really register these names to monetize them, so if this happens to you and it's a name that will get no type-in traffic, don't visit the name or try to buy it off the new owner, just wait 5 days and it'll probably be available again (worked for me).

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This page contains a single entry by DanielBMarkham published on February 13, 2006 7:53 PM.

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Daniel Markham

Daniel Markham

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