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When was the last time this happened to you: you’ve got a killer new idea for a campaign. You’ve found a name that fits perfectly. You run a WHOIS check on it, and, because the ICANN gods are smiling down on you,  your domain name is open. You run it around the office to get the final approval, come back the next day to pick up the domain name and… it’s taken. And no, it wasn’t your officemate playing a joke on you (though you should consider putting his phone in jello to be safe).

While it may seem like bad luck when this sort of thing happens, it’s possible that you’re actually the victim of a new type of fraud called, "domain name front running." An AP story explains:

That has led to suspicions that someone with access to search requests has been using the information to gauge interest in a domain name.

By buying the domain first, that person can then try to sell it to the interested party for a profit. This is different from traditional domain name speculation because the buyer knows for sure that the address is of interest.

This is just the latest in a long line of abuses of the domain name registry system, and it’s causing companies and non-profits to have to go through costly procedures to get their good name back. Find out more, and what you can do to stop it, below the fold.

 

First off, let’s be clear: this is an order of magnitude worse than the practice called, "domain tasting," wherein people take advantage of the 5-day "return period" to buy millions of domains and see which can make a profit with AdSense.

Because domain tasting is winding down, partially as a result of Google’s greater regulation of how AdSense can be used and partially because browse by name is becoming more popular as a way to avoid hitting the wrong URL, the cattle rustlers of the online west need to find another way to abuse the system, and this seems to qualify.

To be fair here, I’ll point to a blog that says that domain name tasting is great.  He argues that it’s a situation in which everyone wins. I’ll point out that the losers are two groups that aren’t discussed in his post: web surfers who are just trying to find where they’re going, not a page of ads about the topic, and legit non-profits and businesses that are trying to get their site going without having to go to court to get their rightful trademark.

While you can get back a trademarked domain name through the courts, it can take a long time - a quick google showed a law firm advising that 60 days is considered quick. Domain frontrunners are making a bet that you’ll find it cheaper to buy the domain from them for fifty to one hundred times what they paid for it instead of taking your case to court and winning a pyrrhic victory.

So how can you protect yourself? The easiest way is to use an official WHOIS database, rather than a reseller portal, or at least pick a relatively reputable commercial site.

Secondly, don’t start searching until you’re ready to buy. When it’s time to come up with a name for your campaign or company, provide a list of as many ideas as you can think of for approval and tell people that you’re going to go down the list until you get one, and that’ll be it. This keeps frontrunners from buying it between the search and the approval.

Lastly, if the site you want has been taken, keep checking in. It may be on temporary hold for five or thirty days, and you may be able to pick it up after they find that AdSense aren’t working there.

I’d like to see a more regulated domain name system, particularly as we’re running out of good domain names. Until we have it, just be ready to stake your claim as quickly as possible, and be ready to come up with a new killer idea.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 5th, 2007 at 8:05 pm and is filed under Tech, Web Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.