Hi folks,

With all the talk in the past few months about domain front-running and spying on whois searches, what are some of the reliable sites to do a search for the availability of a site? I currently use network-tools.com, but I was wondering if there were others, or if anyone has an opinion on that site. I'm asking especially because last week, I did a search for "myownname".com and .ca (a somewhat unique name; I registered the .ca only), and I (stupidly) used a different site to do the search, and the .com was registered by a domain squatter the same day. I won't name names publicly because unfortunately I'm not 100% sure which site it was that I used, because I only noticed it was registered a few days later, and so I don't want to publicly accuse the site, but I certainly won't go back there myself. However, I will say that it was a big-name registrar.

So, any comments or opinions?

Richard

well to think that these practices arent going on across all registrars and websites would probably be naive but the answer is we just dont know... the real question is to what extent its going on and which sites/registrars are doing it the most/least. imnsho, i doubt any search is not logged and reviewed at all.

It's the .com registry selling the searches, so it won't matter much where you do the searches. You're safest bet is to use the individual whois for each registry. However, I kinda like (and recommend) www.iWhois.com. At least you know there that the tool isn't compromised (according to Richard, owner of NameCheap registrar).

It's the .com registry selling the searches, so it won't matter much where you do the searches.

Is there any prove for that?

And do they sell the searches through the whois, registry connection or dns look ups?

how can you have a un-trustworthy whois search :S one that automaticly reg any domain you search :D thats an idea ;)

Jay Westerdal of Domain Tools..

I don’t believe any Registrars are spying on queries from people trying to register domain names and then registering the names themselves.� However, Verisign and ISPs are selling Non-Existent domain DNS queries. So it is much safer to do a whois lookup than it is to type a domain directly into the address bar.

link to complete article in his blog.. http://blog.domaintools.com/tags/domain-tasting/

Jay Westerdal of Domain Tools..



link to complete article in his blog.. http://blog.domaintools.com/tags/domain-tasting/


+1.

Another one of the reasons we run queries off our internal systems and not 3rd-parties.



Regards,

There is only written that they sell DNS query results. No whois query or direct registry query results are sold, that's what would have a much bigger impact.

It's the .com registry selling the searches, so it won't matter much where you do the searches. You're safest bet is to use the individual whois for each registry.

What exactly do your two statements mean? Could you (or someone else) spell it out a bit more for me, please?

I know for a fact some large ISP's are selling dns error information. I won't mention any names but that information is for sale and I have seen it myself. Regarding verisign, it is well known that ANY of their information is for sale for the right price.

You can check domain availability at internic.net/whois
I think they are trustworthy.