The fact that ICANN after so long still hasn't managed to remove the add-grace-period (AGP) says it all. People on the board must have a stake in commercial entities operating in the DNS-trade. What other explanation is there?

So Network Solutions admits that *IT* has a problem. It admits that it does not effectively monitor its own servers and that third parties are (illegally?) accessing and monitoring its servers, and that this monitoring is responsible for this "front running". So instead of fixing their network, they're preventing people from registering domains at other registrars, and doing exactly the thing they say they are protecting people from? So they profit from it *AND* they don't have to fix their network. Yeah, that'll convince me to use their services. How does this make them any different than the miscreants they're supposedly "protecting" people from?

What's the delay?

For example, if I search for a domain name, and then immediately go to purchase it, will it be already "reserved" by the time I reach the purchase page?

So if I ran a scripted search, for domains "network-solutions-are-a-corrupt-bunch-of-cunts-000000" to "network-solutions-are-a-corrupt-bunch-of-cunts-199999" will they reserve these domains for me?

Possibly they can go one step further, and do *predictive* 'reservations', and also 'reserve' the numbers 200000 through 299999.? Would be considerate of them, wouldnt it?

(paris because id like to "engage in tasting her domain".. did i just say that?)

How on earth would they get a phone call? If someone does a search they don't leave their phone number first - or even their contact details. UNLESS the person searching is already a customer of Network Solutions and has logged in.

In that case only Network Solutions could be phoning them or they have a big security breach on their database, there is an inside person working for Network Solutions that is passing off the data to a third party.

This is more worrying than originally thought.

"What's the delay?"

A couple minutes at most from what I've seen, usually near instantly.

"So if I ran a scripted search, for domains "network-solutions-are-a-corrupt-bunch-of-cunts-000000" to "network-solutions-are-a-corrupt-bunch-of-cunts-199999" will they reserve these domains for me?"

Yep :-)

"Possibly they can go one step further, and do *predictive* 'reservations', and also 'reserve' the numbers 200000 through 299999.? Would be considerate of them, wouldnt it?"

They don't get, so sussshhh!

Sounds remarkably like something his Georgeness did recently -- is he involved in Network Solutions? Or maybe the US guvment?

i'd always kind of assumed domain registers would do this anyway. it seemed to me an obvious ploy to set up a domain availability checker and then collect data about the domains people were 'checking out'.

neither can i say i'm altogether surprised to find that it's netsol who are doing it. they've always struck me as a sleazy, price-hiking organisation - which is why i've removed all my domains from their control and switched them to godaddy and enom.

Domain tasting/stealing is a huge problem. See also:

http://pocketseo.com/domains/7