Finally, I found a site that I can depend on for good content. THanks!…

an update. just count me being lucky. the domain name has been released by NetSol. * relieved *
5 days of insomnia for guarding the domain name, waiting restlessly until it was finally released. phew. (-.-) I’m glad I could finally get it back without paying their $34.99 price and without making any international phone call to them. (thanks GOD)

but this is still an expensive lesson. I couldn’t sleep well during the nights till I got it back. I should have asked more information from the others who have been around longer.

thanks to you for your comfort during those days. I really appreciate that. btw, is your internet connection still okay during these days? my internet provider has trouble during two days and that’s why I’m late in delivering this update news to you.

take care for now, bye. ^^

Byeol’s response:

Hi Lexi. Glad to hear that news from you. Next time, please make sure you have dug out reliable information before you make any decision, so you won’t fall into any bad experience anymore.
Thanks for spending your times posting your update with the readers here. And, by the way, I also have difficulties in getting online for these two days. Just being able to get online for less than 1 MB, and the connection dropped. Both of my internet providers are the same quality, their connection sucks.

I think everything just goes back to each user. And I’m not talking about some new comers that were too curious to try (or toy) with other registrar’s tool unknowingly that their searched name will get frozen for around 4 till 5 days (concerning the different time zone, if we are talking about international user).

However, there were some people who just toyed around with other registrar’s searching tool, no matter how cheap the registrar they know would offer them (let’s just name it registrar X), yet they kept using other registrar’s tools (like NetSol’s) to search the availability of their chosen domain name, and the reason was just similar with what we fear, the fear of their chosen domain name being stolen by registrar X. The reason they might have done it was actually the same fear, but the later nightmare was it didn’t happen with registrar X, but with this other registrar they toyed with (for example, NetSol).

So I think there is a common harsh lesson for each user to take note, so like what you said:

if you have decided to purchase any domain name, make sure first about which registrar service you would use for the registration, and search the availability of your chosen domain name only from the chosen registrar, and don’t toy with other registrar’s tools (like this Network Solutions has).

So, yep, you discern a registrar, you choose it, then make sure to use only the tools belong to the registrar you have chosen.
And I think that explains a lot.

Byeol’s response:

Thanks for providing other side’s points of view. So at the end, we still meet a common conclusion too. And yes, that explains a lot. Thank you for posting your comment.

And not to mention that third parties can now monitor lookups on NSI via the daily additions and deletions from the NSI nameserver by more malicious 3rd parties. So, if you don’t get it in 4 days, a squatter will notice the shown interest and know to register it themselves.

Not so. You’ll notice in your sample above that the domain name’s status is “client hold”.

Domain names in client hold status don’t report DNS updates online. So anyone looking up NetSol’s nameservers attached to those held-up domain names won’t necessarily see what they are.

Use a site like dailychanges.com, which lists how many domain names use a nameserver or so. See if you can find RESERVEDDOMAINNAME.COM there or anywhere else, whichever site you know that does that.

Also, you might want to check Jay Westerdahl’s subsequent blog entry on NetSol’s subsequent changes:

http://blog.domaintools.com/2008/01/network-solutions-is-getting-better/

I don’t have the exact link, but NetSol’s ex-CEO was quoted in Infoworld that they’ll stop this practice once ICANN addresses this completely. No idea when that’ll happen, though.

If anything, I agree the simple solution is not to use NetSol’s site to search for now. It’ll help make our lives a bit easier.

Byeol’s response:

Hi Dave. Thanks for sharing more information and more clear insight about this situation (also for the correction if I was wrong), and thanks for the URL about NetSol’s subsequent changes.
Anyway, it seems that it’s still a long way till this practice is stopped completely by them (and any other similar sites). So, the simple solution still is … to not use NetSol’s site to search anything. Back to basic again, if we have decided to register our domain names through registrar X, then use X’s search tools instead, rather than toying around with other registrar’s site. Still, there are some innocent new comers that have not done their prior research towards any registrar, and I hope the similar situation won’t happen anymore in the future.

And thanks for coming.