DomainInspect Domain Lookup Stole My Domain!

[jhansen]

Hello,

I'm pretty angry right now, and I'll be more than glad to tell you why. For as long as I've been in domaining (6-8 months) I've read stories about people doing domain lookups on various shady websites only to find out the site registers the name via a script right after a successful search. I dismissed that sort of thing as foolish people using free tools to do lookups and not being careful about who they share their business with. Quite a while ago I purchased a license for DomainInspect, an application to do lookups on domains in the hope of finding reg-worthy names.

Much to my dismay, I just 'caught', if you will, the program registering a name it just looked up for me. Not only that, but I began to think and realize the same thing happened a day or two ago as well..I just didn't put two and two together.

I set up a large lookup list, 50 or so names, 3 extensions each, and found exactly *1* qualifying name out of the 150, my own little needle among the haystack if you will.

Naturally, I head right to Moniker to register the name...I log in...put the name in...only to be told the name is unavailable! I click the 'whois' button on Moniker..and it tells me the name is available, rinse..repeat..etc.

I go to Whois.net and the domain info is as follows:

Domain Name: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX.COM
Registrar: INNERWISE, INC. D/B/A ITSYOURDOMAIN.COM
Whois Server: whois.itsyourdomain.com
Referral URL: http://www.itsyourdomain.com
Name Server: TM124-2.TRAFMON.COM
Name Server: TM124-1.TRAFMON.COM
Status: ACTIVE
EPP Status: ok
Updated Date: 02-Nov-2006
Creation Date: 02-Nov-2006
Expiration Date: 02-Nov-2007


What the (expletive)? Is there any safe way to look up domains, or should I just give up searching altogether?

A very unhappy customer,
Justin

 

[Kate]

ITSYOURDOMAIN.COM is also a dropcatcher. Could it be that you were monitoring an expiring name and it just got snatched ? Maybe it's going to be tasted for a few days and released thereafter.

 

[ripley]

Watch the name -- it may well be dropped in 5-6 days if it doesn't have any significant traffic.

ripley.

 

[jhansen]

Not a chance. It's the full name of an up-and-coming music group. The .net and .org are both free, the band's actual site is (bandname).dk.

I hope it gets dropped in a few days and I can snatch it.

 

[cache]

there are many examples of whois lookup stole names, but your case is less likely because you looked up 50 names.

 

[Dave_Z]

Stolen a domain name you never owned in the first place?

I realize you're angry. But it's still not accurate to say "your" domain name got
"stolen" just because you looked it up and saw it taken later on.

As the others said, give it 5 days (or rather 120 hours from its creation date
and time stamp). Don't contact its current registrant and don't look it up on
your browser.

Have you tried bringing up this matter with the software provider to see what
they have to say? I won't be surprised if they say they're free to do anything
with the data being "fed" in their software, which might be a good time to get
rid of it.

Oh, and make sure your computer's clean too. You can do a UNIX WHOIS type
of lookup if you're familiar with it.

FYI, all .com queries go through the Registry:

http://registrar.verisign-grs.com/whois

But if you can't trust that site, then forget searching altogether.

 

[jhansen]

I checked again today (by just going straight to Moniker and typing the name as a registration attempt) and the name was available again. I quickly registered it, guess it didn't get enough traffic for them. I won't use DomainInspect anymore though.

 

[Kate]

Great. Care to share the name ?

 

[jhansen]

Great. Care to share the name ?

RacetrackBabies(dot)com

official site is RacetrackBabies(dot)dk

Touring USA soon, just sent their new album to a ton of US stations...hopefully they'll make it big over here.

 

[Lasher]

Not a chance. It's the full name of an up-and-coming music group. The .net and .org are both free, the band's actual site is (bandname).dk.

I hope it gets dropped in a few days and I can snatch it.

Just be grateful they took that future trademark liability off your hands

Edit: Ooops, hadn't read to the end of the thread yet. Anyway, if they make it big and decide they want the .COM, archive of this thread will nail you in a UDRP - now you have to be very careful with usage.

 

[gingerbreadweb]

I hate domain tasters (the ones who monitor domain queries) sooooo much. Absolute w*nkers.