Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Network Solutions has instituted a 4 day lock on all domain names searched on their site. Big surprise?
The other "insiders" and industry news pundits finally picked up on the domain "Front Running" issue, and boy did they push out the headlines. The Domain State forum saw a ton of traffic.What gets me about all this is that it's "old news". We've watched other registrars doing "Front Running" for years now.
In fact, I'm the one who took the term from the stockmarket and first applied it to the practice involving domains.Back in 05 while watching some of my whois name searches get picked up and regged by some of the "accredited" registrars, I decided to seed some names and sit back and watch them take the bait. They did. I then notified ICANNt that these guys had evidently learned of a nasty trick called "Front Running" and were running it on their own clients. As usual ICANNt ignored the warning.
Spring forward to mid 2006 and my phone conversation with Jay at Name Intelligence (Domaintools) where I asked if he was aware of the problem of "Front Running" on domains? I pointed out some examples having been "run" by Chesterton Holdings of Oversee/NameKing/DomainSponsor? Jays take was somewhat skeptical and he seemed content with the idea that so many names were being tasted, that it was just coincidence.
It took another year of free and expanded reign by the "Front Runners" before Domainers started to make more of a fuss. In mid 07 Jay put out a piece in his blog referring to the fuss about "Front Running" as just "Hype". I posted a comment to this article and even included an archive shot of an example Front Run domain I had pointed out to him as proof back when. No reply.
ICANNt finally takes up the issue way late of course,( http://www.icann.org/committees/security/sac022.pdf ) and I'm pleased they have picked up on my term for the practice, but they still were in denial "What appears to a prospective registrant as an intentional act may prove to be a coincidence". This even after receiving documentation from me, as noted in the report.The bottom line that I see in this whole ordeal is that ICANNt has proved yet again that they do NOT represent Domainers or the Publics interest, and do nothing to protect that interest. They seem to function mainly as a taxing authority without providing representation for those paying the tax. They pass out accredations to registrars, and rarely withdraw one no matter what the proof provided of wrongdoing or fraud by the registrar. (See Registerfly)
I believe that those jumping all over Network Solutions for taking steps to protect their market share, need to focus their anger on the real problem.
ICANNt failed again.