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Warning: Network Solutions steals domain names

Published January 09, 2008
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Just a warning for you budding dotcoms out there.

DO NOT SEARCH FOR DOMAIN AVAILABILITY ON A NETWORK SOLUTIONS SITE

If you do a domain search on their site and the site is unregistered, they will immediately put a hold on the domain.

This was reported on a blog somewhere else, so I tried it out. Feel free to try it yourself with any nonsensical domain name you want. In my case, I headed over to their site to see if "zontarthethingfromvenus.com" was available.

And it was unregistered.

I then headed over to godaddy.com and whois.net and did the same search. Wonder of wonders, that site is not available because Network Solutions owns it.

Ugh, whatta bunch of scumbags. I dearly hope they're sued over this.
0 likes 5 comments

Comments

Evil Steve
Surely it'd be possible to write a bot / script to check availability for thousands of (randomly named) sites? I assume they have to pay to register they domain just like anyone else?

Although I suppose that might not be entirely legal...
January 09, 2008 02:22 PM
ukdm
With domain registration averaging $10 a year it wouldn't cost a company that much to do on a large scale I suppose. It still sucks that they use that tactic and searches should be independent.
January 09, 2008 02:29 PM
Ravuya
Quote: Original post by Evil Steve
Surely it'd be possible to write a bot / script to check availability for thousands of (randomly named) sites? I assume they have to pay to register they domain just like anyone else?
I doubt it, they probably control one of the major nameservers.
January 09, 2008 03:21 PM
ukdm
January 10, 2008 01:23 PM
Moomin
I thought this was common practice actually... I could swear others do it as well. I dont blame them to be honest it's good business pratice and they are not forcing you to use their name search and you still have the opportunity to register the domain from them.
January 10, 2008 05:01 PM
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