Whois Hijacking - the squatters latest craze.

Have you ever researched an Internet domain, waited a few days and then, when you go to buy it, it's no longer available?

You may have been a victim of whois hijacking.

Through a mechanism not yet well understood, some domain squatters are able to get information on domain lookups, which are performed using a protocol named "whois". They use it to quickly�and automatically �register the domain. This practice is usually combined with domain tasting, so the domains may be available again before too long. In the meantime, the squatters put up an ad page on the site. If it gets hits, they keep the site. They also usually put up a link through which you can buy the site from them (at a vastly higher price than if you had gotten it first).

What is domain tasting you ask? It's a practice of some domain squatters whereby they register a domain, place an ad-based site on it, and evaluate traffic for several days. An ICANN rule allows them to recover fees if the domain is released within 120 hours (5 days), so they keep the ones that look promising and release the others. This is why if you ever loose a domain, do NOT ever visit the URL or you may be shooting yourself in the foot!

What can you do? Well first NEVER research domain through WhoIs. After all, that's how they learn that you are interested in the domain in the first place. Until there is a good understanding of how the whois requests are intercepted, you should just do a traditional domain search from the registars site.

I only ever go to whois if a domain is already registered and I'm simply curious who owns it lol... I never visit it for urls I'm interested in getting for the very reason Ingus has stated