Domain Front-Running Story at WebProNews

Domain Frontrunning is called a "Protection Practice" by Network Solutions and is discussed a domain frontrunning article by Jason Miller of WebProNews, and is interviewed on the SEO101 show from WebmasterRadio.fm with hosts Caroline Shelby and David Brown talking about the practice of reserving domains that are searched, but not purchased at the NetSol site. ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) frontrunning study (PDF) determined that Network Solutions was indeed doing that.

domain frontrunning SEO 101 | The Beginning SEO Podcast - Domain Frontrunning

If you'd like to skip the unrelated stuff, the domain conversation is from 10:30 to the 15 minute mark, then the commercials run until 17:00 minute mark until the 21:30 mark, a total of eight minutes of the good stuff.

NetSol admitted to the practice and backed off of it, but continues their "Protection Program" suggesting that if you call them, they would cancel the "Hold" they had placed on your searched domains OR that you could use their "Whois" search to find out if a domain was available without triggering the "Protection Program" or as we know it - front-running.

Apparently ICANN received over 150 complaints on the practice and determined that only a portion were actual cases of Frontrunning. This is month-old news, but interesting to hear it discussed by Miller, who thoroughly researched the article for WebProNews.

Outting Network Solutions Criminality

I had to double take one day when I was reviewing my traffic logs to find a subdomain on my site was attracting a good chunk of traffic - a subdomain that I didn't set up myself or authorize my host to set up. That turned out to be an innocent mistake of failure to delete old records if I'm to believe my hosting company. (archive.org proved it too.)

But I've stumbled upon the odd unexpected, and in some cases scandalous thefts when I mis-typed and hit ww.domain-name.com and found hijacked domains which were being stolen by hosts or registrars or hackers. Since they weren't mine, I laughed, or felt uncomfortable or got slightly outraged - and moved on. I can't police other domains for people.

But now Network Solutions is stealing from domain owners - again by simply setting up all unassigned subdomains to resolve to their parked pages with ads on them with the little "under construction" links on them - but full of paid ads which steal from the rightful domain name owner.

When you can blame hackers or forgetful hosts, it's one thing - but when your registrar burglarizes your good name for profit - it's unforgivable. This has to seriously piss off a lot of Network Solutions customers.