9th January 2008

WARNING: Do not check domains at Network Solutions

posted in Webmastering |

Based on a post I read by Graywolf titled Hey Network Solutions Sniffing Domain Searches By Chance I thought I’d check it out myself.

So I headed over to Network Solutions and entered “jlhstesttoseeifyouregister.com” [JLH's test to see if you register]. Waited about 2 minutes.

Then I visited the name in my browser, to see a parked page. Checking the whois data, you can see that it was indeed registered by Network Solutions. Heck even Aboutus.org has a page up already proudly serving Adsense, so their is a Google slant to this.

So bottom line is that if you are using Network Solutions to check for available domains, if you don’t buy it instantly they’ll double the price of the domain and sell it to you later at $19.95. Why anyone would pay $9.95 or more for a new domain is way beyond me as there are always plenty of cheaper options willing to pay Google Adwords for a click .

Now, I must wonder if Network Solutions has to at least pay the icann registration fee on these. If so, why wouldn’t somebody set up a script to check millions of goblety-gook domain names at Network Solutions? I’m just saying…

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 12:14 am and is filed under Webmastering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. All comments are subject to my NoFollow policy. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

There are currently 5 responses to “WARNING: Do not check domains at Network Solutions”

Why not let me know what you think by adding your own comment! All the cool kids are doing it.

  1. 1 MyAvatars 0.2 On January 9th, 2008, JohnMu said:

    It’s called domain name “tasting”: they can register the name and return it after a few days, paying almost nothing. The idea is that if you check a name, it may be a good one for a parking page, so they put up a parking page and see how much income they get that way (from people just entering the name directly into their browsers). If the income is high enough, they will keep the name, paying the normal fee (ok, probably a bit less :-)).

    If you want the name and you know that it isn’t something that people would enter into their browsers like that, the best thing you can do is to not access it (and especially not clicking on any ads), wait a few days and then pick it up for the normal price.

    That said, there are plenty of registrars who do not do this questionable practice…

  2. 2 MyAvatars 0.2 On January 9th, 2008, JohnMu said:

    So much for posting-before-coffee :-) - here are some more links on it:
    http://blog.domaintools.com/2008/01/network-solutions-steals-domain-ideas-confirmed/
    http://domainnamewire.com/2008/01/08/network-solutions-faces-pr-nightmare-over-domain-frontrunning/
    http://www.conceptualist.com/2008/01/08/search-for-domains-at-network-solutions-face-extortion-by-network-solutions/
    http://www.elliotsblog.com/index.php/2008/01/08/network-solutions-defensive-measure-for-whois-searches/
    http://www.dmueller.com/2008/01/08/domain-names-domains/network-solutions-front-running/
    http://www.dotsauce.com/2008/01/08/networksolutions-scandal-hijacking-domain-searches/

    [sorry for the delay in posting, the six links got the comment stuck in the spam file]

  3. 3 MyAvatars 0.2 On January 10th, 2008, Forrest said:

    I found a site with some really handy AJAX that tests domain names, and a friend warned me this might be possible. It wasn’t the case … but it’s interesting to see that people actually do operate this way. What a shame.

    Reading your post, I was wondering the same thing … why someone doesn’t write a script to change the economics. I guess we both owe John Mu thanks for answering that one. ( Plus, I’m sure it would be illegal… )

  4. 4 MyAvatars 0.2 On January 10th, 2008, John Honeck "JLH" said:
    Forrest, reading the blogsphere the last couple days this case has been pretty well documented well beyond my little corner of the world’s scope. I’d imaging we’ll see some sort of backtracking soon from netsol on this soon.
  5. 5 MyAvatars 0.2 On January 26th, 2008, dockarl said:

    JLH - Google apparently has an answer to this issue - http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/W/WEB_ADDRESS_SAMPLING?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-01-25-17-24-51

    M

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