Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!

Yesterday the domain was free and I was all ready to register it in the next couple of days and set up hosting...

...until just now when I find out it's been registered!

WTF?

My guess is, is that this company has auto-registered it when I was doing searches for available domains. I did a WHOIS and then a net search on the company that owns the domain and, you betcha, they're involved in a court case for nicking someone elses domain!

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggh!

The real bitch of it is, is that it's not even like this domain could make money for them. And on top of it all, here I am ready to fork out dollars for the domain and website and spend loads of time building and maintaining it as a service to a fan community. So not only has he stolen my domain, but he's now stolen a service to fans.

Facking, fack, fack, fack, fack! (I can't remember if you're allowed to swear or not here).

If I knew how to fack them over with hacking or whatever, I SO would. Pity I'm not leet 'nuff :(

How can it be stolen when you didn't even register it?

First come, first served.
You want it, buy it.

Wait till next year - *maybe* they'll let it lapse.

If you mean the domain expired and you were going to renew in a couple days.

It takes about 45 - 60 days for companies like snap back to be able to get expired domains.

So if you let your domain expire fore 45-60 days its your fault for loosing it.

IMHO

Sorry for the loss though

Originally posted by Delglath
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!

Yesterday the domain was free and I was all ready to register it in the next couple of days and set up hosting...



You snooze you loose if you find a domain you like available buy it on the spot if not you risk in loosing it. Since you never owned it wasn't stolen you just waited too long to act.

No, no, no...

It was an unregistered domain. It has been unregistered for ages. Over the last week or so, I've checked out several registrars and looked at a couple of 'free' hosting services. In that time, I've done probably three or four WHOIS searches on the domain through different registrars.

Then today, suddenly, it's registered. And the company it's registered to is in a court case for nicking someone elses domain so I'm guessing that that's what they do; nick 'em and then sell 'em back to desperate people/companies.

There is no reason for this domain to be registered out of the blue like this since it's not exactly a 'money spinner' type domain. It's just something I wanted in order to create a fansite. My guess is, is that through one of the whois's, it's seen my interest and said, "Ooh, I'll nick that one today and charge him lots for it tomorrow!"

As far as the comments about "First come, first served," how can you say it's even remotely ethical to do something like this? I'm a nobody. A schmuck who's just trying to create a fansite and this twerp of a company has gone and snatched up the domain just to make a quick buck.

What's REALLY odd about the whole thing, though, is that the WHOIS says the domain has been registered since july last year and will expire july this year... but like I said, I've done several whois's on the domain and it was only registered some time in the last 24 hours...

What's REALLY odd about the whole thing, though, is that the WHOIS says the domain has been registered since july last year and will expire july this year... but like I said, I've done several whois's on the domain and it was only registered some time in the last 24 hours...


My domain used to do that,usally when it shows that a domain is not registerd is because the WHOIS database that is hosting your WHOIS INFO is either down or is having problems.Ive had a few people in the past year email me asking how i own the domain if they just registerd it.

Was your name in the whois? If not, you didnt own it, and unless if you own a copyright on the name and have the money to burn you can fight it out. If not you're screwed.

This is what happened to me when I was going to buy the .net version of my domain... Someone else snapped it up a few days later and I'm without the .net of my domain. What can I do about it? Absolutely nothing. So since I didnt own the domain, it was "first come, first served"


As far as the comments about "First come, first served," how can you say it's even remotely ethical to do something like this? I'm a nobody. A schmuck who's just trying to create a fansite and this twerp of a company has gone and snatched up the domain just to make a quick buck.


Thats how it is in the domain market. Little shumks like us have to live with the fact that it is indeed a first come first served business. It may seem unethical, but if you know a better way for acquiring domain names and the processes involved, I'm all ears (err eyes).

Anyways. If you are determined enough, send off an email to the registrant and see if they are willing to sell it. That is all you can really do. Since you didnt get it when it was available... As the old saying goes. Tough ****. Better luck next time.

Over the last several months, seemingly since the .org move, a variety of Whois servers have been very unreliable with their results. I almost never use the Network Solutions whois anymore.

More specifically to this post, slowmail and arpmn are right - it's first come, first served. No one can steal something that wasn't yours in the first place.

However, it sounds like perhaps it was taken all along and you were just a victim of faulty whois searches.

I recently used Nameboy.com to assist in thinking up suitable names for a site I wanted to develop. They returned some very surprising "availabilities". When I went to register the selection I settled on I found it had been registered for more than a year.

Hrm, ok, maybe I jumped to some faulty conclusions through being upset. I was kinda hyped over the fact that the domain was available and was gearing up to get it only to find out it was gone. So... I was just annoying and upsetting.

I didn't realize that the whois function could be so faulty. The domain I wanted was an .org one and Ranch mentioned there were problems with that recently. I guess that might have something to do with it.

Still... the company that owns it has no reason to own it, really and it is still involved in a domain name dispute. Sigh. Oh well, whatever, I can see I'm not going to get any sympathy here! :P

Does this company (that owns it now) have a WHOIS and did you use their WHOIS to see if this domain was available? If so, they could be logging whois searches and then register any domains that looks promising (if you did not registered it after performing the whois on their site). Unethical if this was the case.

Don't use WHOIS from just any site, you don't know who operate them and how ethical they are!

This arguements sounds senseless. Simply some whois sites you've used are havign some issues. Use a more well known site for checkign on names, like register.com. If you hadn't even owned the domain, how have they stolen the domain from you? Sounds ridiculous how you say this a bit..

Someone's theory about the domain being registered after this company may have been spying on them with their own whois service isn't correct, since this domain has been registered for almost a year..

Anyhow, the domain industry is crazy, good luck with attempting to find another domain, or tryign to buy this domain off the owner.

Dan

Once more: fack

:D

Originally posted by Delglath
the company that owns it has no reason to own it

oh, how so :confused:

maybe they were in the process of developing it :confused:

you had your reasons for wanting to register it, so did they, so your statement should state...

i, delglath, that wants to own it has no reason to own it

:D

since it's been own, what is it? :D

ML

Originally posted by Dylan
oh, how so
Call me cynical but I see very little reason for this domain to be owned by a company in Hong Kong, who hasn't done anything with it for nine months and is also in a court case regarding domain nicking, other than for domain parking and extortion.

Anyway, we'll see. I emailed the owner to see if they're willing to sell it to me. If they ask for a $1,000 then I'll know for sure :D

Originally posted by nmluan
since it's been own, what is it? :D
greyhawk.org

It's the Dungeons & Dragons original fantasy setting. I want to create a fansite for fans of the setting. That and I'm bored and have a lot of time on my hands so I need something to sink my teeth into and hopefully give me som marketable skills.

For .ORG's the *ONLY* for-sure reliable place you can check if a domain is registered is the registry at www.pir.org

Also, if the domain is pretty decent and a huge domain company ownes it, it was probably an expired domain before (the big domain company picking it up after expiration for traffic, etc.).

Dan