They say, all the good domain names were booked in 90’s…but still our creative minds always tend to find out something that’s trendy and cool…we go ahead and search for it… yippee!, its available…we realize that its late in midnight…why not we wake up in the new sun and have that thing owned!…we sleep with the dreams of what we could possibly do with that domain…but alas!, the next day you find it to be booked by some so-n-so company owning thousands of other domains!!!!
If you have a name in mind for a new company then you should be aware that doing something like searching for the availability of the domain can be dangerous in today’s world of domain name research thievery. What rogue companies are doing is stealing domain names by intercepting your research and then registering the name for themselves. These companies can be avoided though and you just have to be cautious and alert.
Here we have some tips that may help you. In order to avoid being victimized by these rogue companies, be sure to avoid address bar guessing and avoid using search engines that fail to generate billion dollar revenues on an annual basis, i.e except the big ones! Most of the time, people have the strong urge to enter a domain name in the address bar to see if an existing company has already taken it but this is actually the most dangerous thing you could do because ISPs normally sell NXD data (non-existent domain).
The buyers register the domains which have the potential of generating the most money based on the visitor count for the particular domains. Smaller search engines on the other hand are the ones usually approached by data-mining firms and because these engines are looking for other revenue sources revealing what people are searching for becomes a potential income stream.
There are browse plug-ins that send information back to the Internet and these should be avoided as well. Browser plug-ins are usually free and just like anything that comes at no expense you should be critical of the catch. Most of the time, these get data and send them back to the Internet and as previously mentioned this is one of the most common data-mining tactics used by rogue companies.
Finally, always go directly to trusted registrars and who-is companies. Data is always valuable once sold and this is what most ISPs do. Trusted who-is websites are those that offer protection in such a way that they do not allow data-mining and are required to file official service plans before gaining permission to sell data.
When it comes to domain name tasting practices, the protocol is for companies to use algorithms and not resort to mining queries for the information they need but sadly the reverse is happening as we speak. With a number of companies tasting as much as 50,000 domain names a day, you should be more protective with your ideas as they can easily fall into the wrong hands in an instant.
