Can a domain name registrar register a domain name for themselves for free or for a minimal fee? What about Verisign -- if they registered ".com" domain names for themselves, who would they even pay since there is no one above them? Seriously, does anyone know the answer to this? I've never found an authoritative answer.
I've wondered if domain name registrars are speculating in the domain name market themselves. Perhaps even insidiously grabbing domain names that you've shown an interest in. Maybe millions of domain names are reserved by the registrars themselves!
Wasn't godaddy or someone like them doing exactly that, a number of years ago? I seem to recall a situation where you'd go to their site and search for a domain, and if you didn't buy it, then the next day it would mysteriously show as no longer available, but purchasable.
I think this specific process is referred to as domain tasting. Front running is using insider information, such as whois logs, while tasting is actively registering domains and measuring how much traffic the domain gets.
Yea they'd abuse the 3 day grace period that was put in place to squat the domains that were searched. That let them temporarily lock up the domain and also announce to the world that there was interest in the domain, leading to more squatting.
A long long time ago, I do remember that Verisign did something with the .com namespace so that unregistered domain queries got redirected to a default webpage they hosted (no doubt with plans to monetize). My memory is hazy but I've included some links below.
There was a massive backlash for obvious reasons and they reversed the change quite quickly.
Whenever I use Chrome and it redirects a legitimate website URL that I've hosted locally to their search engine as a search query... I feel a sense of disappointment with the IT community, in that we let Google hijack everything in a similar way without much criticism at all.
> Whenever I use Chrome and it redirects a legitimate website URL that I've hosted locally to their search engine as a search query...
German internet provider T-Online pretty much does the same by default. When you enter a domain without a DNS record, they will redirect you to one of their pages.
I think it's something like "That domain does not exist" at the top and then their "news" site which is plastered with ads and more.
Shady tactics, but you can disable that in their settings when they are your ISP.
Many years ago, in the heyday of domain speculation (after the dot-com crash), some of the largest domain speculators became registrars to gain advantages such as the one you mention.
This conflict of interest was not limited to registrars. Registries got into the game as well, reserving names for the sole purpose of exploiting speculators or speculating themselves.
What the OP could have done instead of taking a random sample is to examine certain nameservers in the com zone. That is, look at certain registrars. This reveals the true extent of parking.
Not sure about the situation today, but in the past many domain registrants were unaware that their registrar was deriving revenue from their "unused" domains The registrants were paying the fees to keep the registrations active and the regsistrar was collecting the ad revenue by setting up parking on the domains.
hugedomains, as mentioned above for being one of the worst, do this. They own their own registrar/are part of the same company / some convoluted ownership structure (namecheap LLC I think)?
Do you have a source for that? Because it's a pretty big claim. I have used namecheap for years, and they have been absolutely wonderful, but if they are also hugedomains I will start migrating.
I've wondered if domain name registrars are speculating in the domain name market themselves. Perhaps even insidiously grabbing domain names that you've shown an interest in. Maybe millions of domain names are reserved by the registrars themselves!