David's Computer Stuff Journal

Nefarious Network Solutions

Posted by David N. Welton Wed, 09 Jan 2008 02:08:00 GMT

  1. Go to http://www.networksolutions.com/

  2. Type in a silly domain name (not something you actually care about!).

  3. In a few minutes, they will have registered that domain themselves, locking you into buying it from them if you actually want it.

They're overpriced anyway, but that's really sleazy.

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  1. davide
    about 1 hour later:

    I just tried with networksolutionsreallysucks.com ... just to watch :-)

  2. Miriam Ruiz
    about 1 hour later:

    I've tried with a couple of silly free domain names too, and had the same results as you, they already registered it themselves in a few minutes.

  3. David Illsley
    about {{count}} hours later:

    Yep, they are now the proud owners of networksolutionsreallyshouldntregisterthis.com

  4. Gheesh
    about {{count}} hours later:

    Tried it too and same result here. One side note: if you look for multiple TLDs, only the .com gets registered.

  5. James
    about {{count}} hours later:

    Excellent, few seconds later their whois confirms the ownership

    http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?domain=networksolutionsautoregisterscam.com

  6. h01ger
    about {{count}} hours later:

    appearantly the technique is called domain-tasting and allows registrars to give back those domains after 5 days at no costs...

  7. Aaron
    about {{count}} hours later:

    Yeah, domain-tasting. Sleazy, horrible practice that should be banned.

  8. ooo
    about {{count}} hours later:

    http://yousonofthebitch.com/

  9. Jamin Davis
    about {{count}} hours later:

    That outrageous! Cheeky money grabbing gits! Bah!

  10. sdf
    1 day later:

    i think it's planned to stop free tasting soon. thank god. was misused 99.99% of the time for sleaze like this or other scams