insight 

I see that there have been a few stories in the press regarding ICANN investigating the practice of registering a domain name based on the search someone has done on that domain name. As far as we are aware this practice is not widespread in the UK.

The issue manifests itself as follows: Person interested in registering a domain name (registrant) does a look up on the WHOIS of a registrar or other service provider. Service provider or other sees the interest in the domain name and then registers to another contact in advance of the original person seeking the domain name.

There were very occasional claims of this practice going back a few years. It is very hard to prove because the perpetrator would be unlikely to register the domain in their own name and would instead register in another name so links can’t be established. It’s almost impossible to know whether this does occur or whether it’s just very bad luck. We’ve not received any reports of this activity of late and we’ve had no cause to take action against anyone in this regard. We will be tracking the outcome of the ICANN investigation with interest.