Submitted by Nik on
I just found a thread over at SitePoint that is worth mentioning, regarding a domain company that’s doing something that has long bothered me in the industry – “domain tasting.” What’s that…?
Certain domain name vendors provide a facility to search for available domains on their websites. Unfortunately, there exists a mechanism referred to as domain tasting, which allows anyone to register a domain for a period of up to five days to see if it’s right for them.
This means that the domain vendors are legally allowed to take the information that you use to search for availability, and then effectively register the domain you wanted, without your permission. They don’t register the domain completely, but the tasting mechanism makes the domain appear unavailable. When the tasting period ends, unscrupulous domain speculators are often waiting to buy up these domains, knowing that someone actually wants it legitimately. This is just nasty practise, in my opinion (on both counts).
So, how to avoid this? Recently outed as performing the above, the rather famous registrar – Network Solutions. So, don’t search for available domains on their website! They don’t deserve your business…
Another article that confirms their tasting practise here, at DomainNameNews.