WHOIS tampering

[roldar]

One week ago I registered the com/net/org domains for a name. When deciding on the domain name I was torn between the one I ended up going with, and its plural. The .com/net/org for both were all open, and I finally opted with the non-plural.

A couple days ago I decided that I'd also get the plural .com just so there wouldn't be any confusion. When I went to register it, it turns out somebody else had just snatched it up.

My first reaction was sheer rage... I nearly broke my keyboard and my dog. Then when I had settled down a bit I went and looked at the whois, and the record said this fellow had registered the name FOUR years ago. Not only that, it said it had expired in March of this year. Well, I was a little dumbfounded, but figured I'd just wait for it to be released into the pool again and I'd register it. Later that same day, two weeks after the supposed expiration date, the guy reupped for another year.

One other person and myself are 100% sure that we each individually checked the status of this domain one week ago, and it was free. All of a sudden now, the record says this guy has had it for several years. He's also got the .net and .org. Is it possible that this is some simple blip in the whois directory - that all three .com/net/org of this domain name would for a couple days incorrectly appear unclaimed, but then a week later be simultaneously corrected as registered?

[xbase234]

which whois are you referring to?

[Dan_Norder]

If all three of the names were with a specific registrar other than the one you use (and if they are all owned by the same person, it's highly probable) it's possible that their whois data wasn't connected through to the whois of the service you were using during the time you checked.

Different whois servers can give different responses or none at all.

[SlowMove]

Once, I was at networksolutions and checked the availability of a domain name that was a real gem. I was just fooling around, and didn't realy think it was available. The system told me it was. I snatched it up immediately, gave my credit card info, and signed up. About an hour later, I got an email informing me that a mistake had been made. The domain was not available, and within a couple of days or so, they would transfer the money back to my credit card account. I thought I hit the jackpot because their data was corrupt.

[roldar]

Thanks for the responses. I guess I didn't realize there were multiple whois databases. I thought all the different registrars submitted their data to a single database. But I checked and the registrar for the domains I was interested in is Network Solutions. They don't seem to put a premium on the integrity of their whois data apparently.