Okay, I am about as steamed up as I have ever been in my over seven years of marketing online.
This practice has been going on long enough and it's time for somebody, the feds, whoever, to put a stop to it.
I am talking about domain name front running by the registrar where you went to look up the domain you were interested in.
I'm going to tell you a true story and then tell you WHY this should be made illegal.
Yes, you can see the smoke coming out of my ears.
I was working with a coaching student of mine.
We were trying to come up with good domains for his new niche.
Well, he did some research and found one that was perfect.
Of course he wanted to run it by me first before he got it.
I looked over the list and gave him my opinion on what the best one was.
He then went to get it and it was taken.
Not only was it taken, it was listed as a premium domain for $11,000.
No, that is NOT a misprint.
Okay, it's obvious that the registrar where he looked up the domain saw the search and snatched the domain before he could go back to get it.
They then put a premium price tag on it.
Now, why should this be illegal? Because they are artificially manipulating the market.
As one member of the Warrior Forum so elegantly put it, it would be no different than a real estate agent marking up the price of a home $30,000 just because somebody showed an interest in that home.
So how do we put a stop to this and how can we avoid this happening to us? Well, to put a stop to it, report this practice to the FTC.
Look up a number of domains, keep track of the lookups, and then report all the ones that were mysteriously taken a short time later.
Show a record of this.
Show the premium prices they're charging for the domains...
ridiculous prices.
To avoid this from happening, don't search for domains through registrars.
There are scripts that will allow you to get whois info without having to go to a registrar to get it.
It's time to put a stop to this, what should be illegal practice, once and for all.
If we don't do it...
who will? To YOUR Success, Steven Wagenheim