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ICANN Can't Find Evidence Of Domain Front Running
from the still-looking... dept
There have been plenty of stories over the years of domain name registrars "front running" domain names, whereby they take domains that people do a search on, and then register themselves, hoping to sell it to the person who searched later for a higher price. Network Solutions, for example, was accused of this practice, though it insisted that it was only "protecting" the domain from others who might snatch it. ICANN was eventually sued for letting this happen. It appears that ICANN also hired Ben Edelman to look into the problem, and his research has apparently turned up no evidence of such domain front-running anywhere. He notes that this doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but he tested it all over and was unable to find it happening. Considering the vast number of reports and complaints about it happening in the past, does this mean that registrars have cleaned up? Or did Edelman miss something?
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ICANN can't find their (virtual) ass with both (virtual) hands.
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Wow
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Happened to me a few years back but haven't had a problem since. However I'm still very hesitant to search for a domain name before I'm ready to purchase one just in case it happens again.
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Hasn't happened to me yet
I have searched GoDaddy for domain names several times a month for the past two years. Typically the domain is already taken. I'd guess that about 5% of the time it's not. I have never found that one which I searched was taken after I searched.
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I suppose that ICANN't find evidence of DNS hijacking either.
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Domain fronting is tied to domain kiting, and since kiting is no longer as easily done, I think that fronting sort of went away as well.
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Re:
Happened to me too. They are still sitting on it.
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" Or did Edelman miss something? "
More likely he "forgot" to look more closely to his employer's interests.
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There's the opposite problem as well!
What about companies that keep domains after canceling the service? Yahoo sat on mine for over a year, or at least until their 3rd party registration service decided to cancel for "non-payment". Since I'd already canceled with Yahoo, who had paid for that extra year? In that entire time, I couldn't get Yahoo release it or even own up to it.
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Umm
It happened to me 2 years ago, haven't tried to buy a new domain lately.
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