
How To Keep Your Domain Name Searches Safe From Poachers - mcyger
http://www.domainsherpa.com/prevent-domain-name-front-running/
======
pg
If you're concerned about frontrunning, use <http://instantdomainsearch.com>.
It was written by YC alum Beau Hartshorne, and I can personally vouch for his
trustworthiness. We use it every batch to find new names for startups.

~~~
credo
Typing in a domain name and clicking "search" on instantdomainsearch.com
immediately takes you to the GoDaddy website which shows the domain name you
typed in and quotes a price for it.

GoDaddy is allegedly one of the biggest domain frontrunners, so I don't see
much value in instantdomainsearch.com. imo the domainsherpa.com suggestions on
domain search are far superior.

~~~
siculars
"Typing in a domain name and clicking "search" on instantdomainsearch.com
immediately takes you to the GoDaddy"

That is not exactly correct. Doing a search returns data from
instantdomainsearch.com itself. Only once it is returned do you have the
option to go to a registrar like godaddy, among others (or just take that name
to a registrar of your liking), to actually register the domain.

I have used instantdomainsearch.com many, many times myself to great success.

~~~
credo
>> _That is not exactly correct_

Why is it not correct ?

When I click the search button, it takes me to the GoDaddy site. Did you
really try clicking the Search button on instantdomainsearch.com ?

~~~
lasonrisa
You are in fact correct. Typing a name and then clicking on the Search button
will take you to GoDaddy.

But you do NOT need to click on the Search button at all to use the site. I
used in the past and I did not even notice there was Search button.

~~~
duck
Exactly right, hence the _instant_ part. I never noticed it either.

------
tzs
The article says to not check if the domain you are interesting in resolves,
because ISPs sell the data on resolution failures. I have two questions about
that.

1\. That seems to assume that one is using their ISPs DNS service. What if I'm
querying the top level .com servers directly? Is that safe?

2\. Even if you are using your ISPs DNS servers, if they are getting that data
from their logs and selling it I'd expect there would be a fair delay before
the data got to some third party that would act on it. That should make it
safe if your intent is to buy the domain soon, shouldn't it?

~~~
mcyger
What do you mean by "querying the top level .com servers directly"? How are
you doing that?

Yes, any ISP would likely have a substantial delay in collecting, filtering
and selling this type of data, which is why I think DNFR is most likely
happening at registrars. I'm just presenting the facts that there are
"middlemen" in the process that people should know about. Thanks for helping
me clarify.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
> What do you mean by "querying the top level .com servers directly"? How are
> you doing that?

First, ask the root servers for the authoritative servers for the TLD you are
interested in:

    
    
        $ dig @f.root-servers.net www.google.com
        
        [...]
        ;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available
        
        ;; QUESTION SECTION:
        ;www.google.com.                        IN      A
        
        ;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
        com.                    172800  IN      NS      a.gtld-servers.net.
        com.                    172800  IN      NS      b.gtld-servers.net.
        [...]
        com.                    172800  IN      NS      m.gtld-servers.net.
        
        ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
        a.gtld-servers.net.     172800  IN      A       192.5.6.30
        b.gtld-servers.net.     172800  IN      A       192.33.14.30
        [...]
        m.gtld-servers.net.     172800  IN      A       192.55.83.30
        a.gtld-servers.net.     172800  IN      AAAA    2001:503:a83e::2:30
        
        [...]
    

The root servers don't know about google.com, but suggest you ask [a-m].gtld-
servers.net, which are authoritative for .com. (Other TLDs have other
authoritative servers.) So let's ask l.gtld-servers.net:

    
    
        $ dig @l.gtld-servers.net www.google.com
        
        [...]
        ;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available
        
        ;; QUESTION SECTION:
        ;www.google.com.                        IN      A
    
        ;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
        google.com.             172800  IN      NS      ns2.google.com.
        google.com.             172800  IN      NS      ns1.google.com.
        google.com.             172800  IN      NS      ns3.google.com.
        google.com.             172800  IN      NS      ns4.google.com.
        
        ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
        ns2.google.com.         172800  IN      A       216.239.34.10
        [...]
        ns4.google.com.         172800  IN      A       216.239.38.10
        
        [...]
    

The above is an example of a registered domain ("I don't know about
www.google.com, ask ns[1-4].google.com"); if the domain is not registered, it
looks like this:

    
    
        $ dig @l.gtld-servers.net no-such-domain.com
        
        [...]
        ;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available
        
        ;; QUESTION SECTION:
        ;no-such-domain.com.            IN      A
        
        ;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
        com.                    900     IN      SOA     a.gtld-servers.net. nstld.verisign-grs.com. 1301905185 1800 900 604800 86400
        
        [...]
    

Of course, [a-m].gtld-servers.net are run by Verisign, who _could_ use this
information for front-running. I'd be very surprised if they did, though.
(DNSSEC may make it possible to query for the existence of a name without
revealing it to the answering server, but I'm not sure - I'd have to read up
on the protocol.)

~~~
mcyger
@JoachimSchipper: That is a good question. I'll need to do some research on
that.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
Are you referring to my DNSSEC remark? You'll want to look at their NXDOMAIN
alternative, which says "there are no domains with hashes between 0xCAFEBABE
and 0xDEADBEEF", where the 0x... stuff are hashes.

Note that running through a dictionary and looking for hashes "near" the
domain you're interested in works if the DNS server is nice enough to hand out
responses of the above form; unfortunately, this can also be used to find
which host names are valid for a domain (host names aren't exactly crypto-
strength passwords). At least djb advocates giving out answers of the form
"there are no domains with hashes between 0xCAFEBABE and 0xCAFEBAC0" (that is,
exactly bracketing the query), in which case you'd need to do something more
clever.

Unfortunately, I'm not intimately familiar with DNSSEC. I'd be happy to learn
the answer, though; if you find it, could you post it as a response, or, if
takes a while, e-mail me? (E-mail in profile.)

[EDIT: improved wording, make it clear that actually sending the whole
dictionary to the DNS server is not necessary.]

------
codingthebeach
Hey, this is a valuable "domain name customer protection measure". Says so
right here in the class action lawsuit notification I got from network
solutions:

 __ _Dear Network Solutions Customer,

Earlier this year, we notified you of the settlement of a class action lawsuit
brought against Network Solutions® in connection with our domain name customer
protection measure that was discontinued last year.

Today, we are pleased to announce that the court has officially approved the
settlement and as result, you are being issued a $6.00 credit applicable to
any Network Solutions product or service purchased on the Network Solutions
website, valid for one year from the date of the issuance of the credit. Your
credit is equal to $6 per qualifying domain name registered through Network
Solutions. For example, if you registered two qualifying domains you can
expect to receive a credit of $12.00.

A qualifying domain name is one that was (i) searched for through Network
Solutions on or between December 14, 2007 and March 15, 2008, (ii) reserved by
Network Solutions under our customer protection measure, (iii) registered by
you through Network Solutions within the same internet session used for the
domain availability search, and (iv) not previously refunded.

You can use your credit to register domain names, get reliable Web hosting,
create a website, secure your existing site & more.

To take advantage of your credit, follow these simple steps:

Visit www.networksolutions.com and select the product(s) you wish to purchase.
In the shopping cart, click ‘Redeem Offer Code’. Enter coupon code
XYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYXYX then click ‘Continue’. Your discount will be reflected in
the shopping cart. Please note that this settlement does not in any way impact
the domain names that you registered, or the terms of domain names you have
registered. No action is necessary on your part.

Sincerely,

Network Solutions® Customer Support_ __

/sarcasm

------
VladimirGolovin
I have two rules when searching for domains.

First, I never search for a complete name. I use www.namedroppers.com that
allows partial name searches. E.g. if I'm looking for 'coolwidgets', I'd
search for "olwidge".

And second, if I see a potentially interesting domain, I grab it right away,
without any worries about the cost -- I'll just drop it a year later if I
don't need it.

------
AlexC04
I once completed the sale of zioo.com on GoDaddy. I'd managed to hand-register
the name for the regular registration price. The money came off my credit card
and everything. About an hour later, I got an email saying "sorry, we didn't
really get the name, here's your money back"

I was positively gutted.

(For those who don't know the domain space 4 letter pronouncable dot-coms are
often valued in the five digit range ($xx,xxx) - that one probably just a few
thousand but still a good ROI vs. $10 to register. I'd have been happy to
build something fun on it.)

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that Godaddy does steal names from
searches. I spend a lot of time working in the domain space and I hear about
it from the pros from time to time.

~~~
prawn
Obviously not in the same price range, but I had a similar experience with my
regular registrar that caused me to grab and then lose diagnose.com.au.
Happened on a weekend too when they had limited/no tech support running. Very
frustrating.

------
trotsky
Is this actually a significant problem anymore? No doubt front running was a
pretty significant practice historically, but I haven't run into the practice
in quite some time. At the peak of tasting practices more than 9 in 10 domains
were given back during the cooling off period. That number has dropped
dramatically since the rules were changed.

While I'm sure a bit of front running must still go on, it's hard for me to
believe it happens to the average joe much if ever. In that light the rules
that page lay out sound pretty over the top, and I'm generally a pretty
paranoid person. I'd only worry about front running today if I was a known
high value target, one who buys or holds a lot of domains. If that was me, I'd
just take some mild precautions. Don't use my registrar to search for domains,
clear tracking cookies before searching. The implications that you can't trust
your ISP DNS system, search engines and certain whois services sounds like
'06-'08 logic to me.

~~~
ohashi
The registrars that got caught stopped, it's not really that big a problem
anymore.

~~~
mcyger
It's not a big problem anymore, but as I point out in the article a) it can
happen a small percentage of the time and b) many registrars ARE in conflict
of interest with their customers.

------
gte910h
I don't know about you, but the prevalence of this has made "picking a domain"
something I only do when I'm buying the domain these days. As in, from search
to buy, it's a few seconds.

------
orborde
What prevents the WHOIS database operator from doing the same query logging?

~~~
duskwuff
The WHOIS database operator is the registry, not a registrar. (I believe
they're actually required to be separate entities.) So, unless there's a shady
back-room deal going on between the registry and one of their registrars, the
registry has no incentive to log their queries.

------
megaframe
I went to find a domain name for personal use a few years ago, using yahoo
business DNS (they were running a special on 5 year pricing). When I decided
on one I liked, I noticed the .com of it was already poached (site was the
usual garbage filler). So I bought the .org.

By the time I closed an paid for the DNS the .net and all other variations had
been bought and were directing to those generic filler pages. I can only hope
that which ever group poached those wasted some amount of time, effort, or
money. I don't run a business from it, and never intend to, but I can see how
this kind of shady behavior would warent paranoia from those looking to run a
business around a given DNS (/corresponding business name).

------
ck2
You cannot even trust registrars (netsol and godaddy are prime examples).

Spend a few hours and write your own code to do direct registry searches
through the whois telnet query.

I wrote one myself, it's not that hard and you'll learn a bit.

~~~
Joakal
Doesn't the whois queries databases like GoDaddy?

~~~
ck2
Only if you continue to resolve registered domains to the local registrar.

You don't have to resolve them that far to see if they are not-registered (or
when they expire) just hit the main registry for the TLD you are interested
in.

------
shaggyfrog
This article stops short of actually explaining how to interpret the text
output. I just did a lookup on a domain I'm interested in, and I _think_ it's
expired -- it's registered with Tucows and it shows two expiry dates (XX-
Mar-2011 and XX-mar-2012). This is kinda fishy since I checked the day before
it was set to expire (~2 weeks ago) and the output never said anything about
2012. My gut tells me Tucows has renewed it for their client (or slyly making
it _seem_ like it's renewed). So... can I grab it yet?

~~~
mcyger
mcurving got most of this correct. Most large registrars will auto renew the
domain on behalf of their customers as a "service." this gives you time to
notice no email coming in and your domain/website not working. Most will allow
you to renew for the regular renewal fee while others will up charge for the
renewal. Then, if it doesn't get renewed, the registrar will auction the
domain name if of high worth (links coming in, traffic, etc.). It then goes to
the highest bidder. If no one bids, it gets deleted. Note: some registrars do
not auction (very few).

I plan to update the article on DomainSherpa (<http://doms.to/vra>) soon with
this information.

------
RobertKohr
It might be fun to F with godaddy.com and start pumping them randomly with
domains. Mixing random words in the dictionary and trying combinations in
sequence like a typical user would would be effective.

Set this up to happen on a daily basis through proxy servers for different
ips, and you might create an interesting way to bleed them a little bit.

Record the domains entered, and see how many times you get them to nick you.
It would make for a fun blog post.

Keep in mind, they have to pay ever time they register a domain.

------
alexjawad
This recently happened me and I posted a thread about it here on HN. Godaddy
responded to an angry tweet of mine, saying that they don't pursue this
practice and asked if the domain was listed with their "privacy service". When
they didn't respond to my reply to that, I emailed them. Customer relations
replied that the domain is protected by their "privacy service" and they can't
reveal who bought it, speculating it was an "individual".

------
jdietrich
I've been poached rather differently - I formed a limited liability company,
and found that as soon as my formation was made official, someone had
registered "$mycompanyname.com". Foolish on my part I suppose.

I do find it rather odd that the owner isn't responding to contact via the
whois record - seems an odd sort of extortion where they don't want to take
your money.

~~~
AlexC04
On this one, if the date you registerred the LLC is before the registration
record was created (do a whois on the domain) you might be able to file a UDRP
complaint (Uniform DOmain Name Resolution Policy) claiming that the current
owner registerred the name in bad faith, with the expectation that they were
going to extort you for the ownership of the .com.

This sort of stuff happens all the time. As far as I know, it's not usually
passed with respect to LLC but rather Trademark.

Regardless, if you really want that name you could have a fighting chance at
it.

Look up UDRP to learn more. Better yet UDRP lawyer. There's one who advertises
a lot on some of the forums I read. Let me know if you're interested and I can
put a bit more legwork into tracking down a name for you.

~~~
mcyger
This is a great point, and likely you'll win a UDRP because the registrant
will ignore the request (if they're guilty). However, filing a UDRP costs
about $1,300.

Entrepreneurs should always register the domain name BEFORE you register for
your company.

~~~
prawn
Not as trivial in the .com.au space if you're doing everything by the book
becuase you must register the domain to a particular ABN or ACN (business or
company number). Can register it to one entity and try to later transfer it,
but not sure how annoying that is. Even one form is enough of a roadblock for
me sometimes so I just register all mine to a single ACN.

------
ams6110
I've never experienced name poaching firsthand. Has anyone else?

~~~
prawn
Happened to me in the .com.au space. Searched a variety of options and made a
shortlist. Sat on it overnight and then returned the next day once I'd decided
which ones to grab - they (8-10 unrelated domains) were taken.

~~~
whatusername
really? Wow. Did you attempt to contest the names at all? (Considering they
likely weren't valid?)

// The .com.au space is _much_ harder to register a domain for than .com

~~~
prawn
It's not that much harder - pretty trivial to register under the "close and
substantial connection rule" and then have a valid play at it under the
service of "domain monetisation."

Years ago it was much more difficult, but since then it's been pretty
straightforward. None of these names were trademarks or anything like that so
there wasn't anything I could contest.

~~~
whatusername
Thanks. Who do you normally do your registration with? I don't normally touch
.au's but have done one or two and it's been a little painful

~~~
prawn
I use TPP, mostly because they've been pretty easy when it comes to keeping
multiple domains under control - easy to delegate to default nameservers, pay
by default credit card on file, etc. 95% of the domains I look after (60-70ish
personal ones and then others for friends and a bunch more for clients) are
.com.au though and I keep the majority of my .coms with TPP also even though
they're more expensive - just saves having different logins for every domain
with Joker, Gandi, etc.

~~~
whatusername
$99 for 2 years of .com.au registration? ziphosting.com.au are pricing it for
$21

~~~
prawn
The rate for resellers is $24 or so for two years.

~~~
whatusername
makes sense. Thanks.

~~~
prawn
I guess it makes it a bit easier to charge clients a fraction more (say
$50/2yrs) via the same registrar and they don't necessarily feel like you're
screwing them.

------
o6uoq
Does anyone know if <http://domize.com> is a front runner? They claim on their
website they are not, but would like to hear users experience if this is not
the case.

------
benologist
I always use <http://dynadot.com>, I've never had a single problem with them
registering what I'm searching for, and their interface is awesomely simple.

------
mhb
Javascript which adds a few dozen bogus flack queries to the one in which you
are interested and only presents you with the results for that one?

------
ohashi
Frontrunning really isn't a big problem anymore. They were caught, got in
trouble, it's basically over. Notice the sources from 2007.

~~~
mcyger
@ohashi: It's not a big problem anymore as you npointed out. However, the way
domain name tasting was reduced (i.e. The financial penalty that was put in
place) does not eliminate the practice entirely. It is not illegal as stated
by ICANN. That was the point of my article, and how people should protect
themselves.

------
RobertKohr
I had godaddy steal my domain back in January. It was kinda depressing.

------
rumpelstiltskin
use <http://domai.nr>

------
phlux
A friend of mine who has 800+ domains was searching for a name for his company
on godaddy and found one he liked. He spoke to his business partner that
evening and they agreed on the name.

The next day he went to register it and found that it was taken... by godaddy.

Godaddy then set it as a "premium domain" and changed the price to $500.

He was pissed.

He accepted the version of the domain with a '-' between the two words
instead. He recently emailed godaddy and let them know that he has 800+
domains with them, explained what happened and said "I would like the domain
that you took, unethically, for the regular domain registration price that all
available domains go for or I will take my ~$9,000 in annual renewal fees to
another registrar.

He has not heard back from godaddy. But he switched his searches aways from
them.

I on the otherhand, typically only search for a domain if I am willing to
spend the 10 right then to grab it.

~~~
A1kmm
Alright, I'm doing an experiment - I've run the following shell commands:

function randomWord() { head -n $(numrandom /1..$(wc -l
/usr/share/dict/words)/) /usr/share/dict/words | tail -n1; } echo
$(randomWord)$(randomWord).com

This has given me an obscure two-word domain name, which I searched in GoDaddy
- all subdomains GoDaddy sells weren't registered.

I've repeated this to give a total of twelve domains. The final two of these
domains are saucepansgrooming.com and rivaledpopping.com. The other ten
domains are written on a folded over piece of paper, and aside from me, the
only place they have been disclosed is in a GoDaddy search (which was sent
unencrypted over the Internet - so technically someone could have sniffed it).
I haven't even attempted a domain name resolution on any of the 12 names.

I plan to come back in a few hours and repeat the search to see whether the
names are still available.

~~~
A1kmm
I've checked back via the GoDaddy interface, and all twelve domain names are
still available (on all the TLDs that GoDaddy sells) at the original price.

This doesn't necessarily mean that GoDaddy doesn't ever take domains - maybe
they only do it from high value customers who they think they can extract more
money from, rather than people who aren't logged in; maybe I searched for too
many domains with too few common substrings so their algorithm classified me
as not wanting to seriously buy; maybe I didn't wait long enough because they
manually decide which ones to buy; maybe the names I tried are too long to be
considered valuable.

~~~
alexjawad
It took me a couple of weeks before mine disappeared, and during that time I
had run searches to double check the availability. The domain name was totally
random so it feels extremely far-fetched that someone happened to register it
just before I was about to purchase it.

~~~
GoodIntentions
I wonder if checking multiple times in two weeks flagged your name as "popular
but unregistered", prompting its' registration? I doubt any registrar would
grab every single name, but ones that suddenly got search hits probably get
snapped up.

Like the article suggests, I always search at the terminal. If the name is
available it gets registered then. I look at it as 8 bucks buying me a one
year option on the name.

~~~
alexjawad
Yeah, you may have a point there. I for sure won't repeat that mistake again.
Having my .com domains snapped away from under my nose is definitely the most
annoying part of branding.

