On Wed, 15 Jun 2011 10:56:46 +0000, notbob wrote:

> On 2011-06-15, ChattyCathy > wrote:
>> On Wed, 15 Jun 2011 04:42:13 -0500, Sqwertz wrote:
>
>>> What's to keep them from jacking up the prices yearly and holding your
>>> established domain hostage?
>
>> I think they're sort of doing that already......
>
> This is domain name hijacking. Some compaies are known to do this and
> warehouse the names for resale. Another rip-off was hosting providers
> would check to see if a domain name you submitted was available, then
> register that name themselves and claim it was taken. It got pretty
> slimey, there, for awhile, one of the well known hosting providers
> being accused. Then there's reverse hijacking, an old M$ and Apple
> Inc trick. You can google for details.
>
That's why you never use the registrar-provided check thingies to see if
something is available, until you have made the decision to register it.
Normally a 'dig whatever.com' is enough to see if someone already has it -
not completely sufficient, there are conditions where dig or even 'dig
whatever.com ns' fails, but the domain is still not available, but a lot
better than tipping a registrar off.

j