Do Registrars Sell Search Queries?

Last night I was searching for available domain names at DirectNIC.com.  I spent about 6 hours on the process when I came up with THE PERFECT DOMAIN NAME!  And better yet, it WAS AVAILABLE!  Boy was I happy!  I could finally get to bed, call my business partners in the morning – throw the name out to them – get some pats on the back – and buy it!

So I make the call this morning…everyone agrees – GREAT NAME!  I get out the company card, go to register the domain and BAM – it is taken.  My face goes white as the blood rushes from my brain.  I can’t believe it.  This name has never been registered – it is not in the dictionary – and someone came up with the same name within 24 hours?  Give me a break

So I call my partners and we come to the logical conclusion – DirectNIC must sell their search queries to companies overseas…So I call DirectNIC.

The phone is answered by a lady in customer service.  She 100% denies that DirectNIC sells their search queries or a feed to their search queries.  She told me “Some people out their, that are not real familiar with the Internet, think the Internet is out to get them.”  I replied:  “I am very familiar with the Internet…this is how I have made my living for the past eight yeras – and DirectNIC is not the Internet – it is a company that does business on the Internet.”  She ended up insulting my intelligence a couple more times and then hung up on me.

For those of you interested in the domain name – it was to be verbeo.com.  Look it up…look at the company it was registered to…and look at the date.

Make up your own mind to whether you think this was a coincidence – the odds are out of this world.  So…the next time you are shopping for domain names – BEWARE!