Manila Industries = registering tons of domains
 

Recently I have noticed several of the domains I checked for availability were open on one day and then the next day were registered. These were not premium domains at all. And no, they were not domains inspired by current events or people in the news. They were all very specific domains and none of them had ever been registered before as far as I can tell.

No big deal, because if any of the domains had been amazing I would have registered them on the day I checked for them. But of course it is a bit of a pain because I have to pick other names to use.

The one thing all these domains had in common were that they were all registered by this company.

Owner's Contact Information:
Manila Industries, Inc.
3843 S. Bristol St. #628
Santa Ana, CA 92704
Phone: 949-743-1697
Email: [email protected]
US


So did a little bit of research and I find other people talking about the same company snapping up domains the same day the person has checked for availabilty.

Obviously they are getting lists of domains that have been searched for or perhaps even seeing the searches in real time.

The registry I used for searches was GoDaddy so perhaps they just have an insider there helping them or perhaps they are getting search database at a higher level then the registrar. Regardless, they are certainly "up to something".

Anyone else run into this issue?

you know, I always wondered why someone didn't do this sooner...I am sure it has been done in the past, but it really shocks me that this isn't common practice for scammers

did you try writing to godaddy and see what they say?

I created a thread about this about 4 months ago when the same thing happened to me on several occasions. Though I don't believe there was anything common about the registrars...but cetainly there was definately not anything common about the domain names that I was searching for.

I guess the best advice is to just register on the spot.

I don't search for a domain names availability until I am ready to register the domain name or an alternative.

\


Not even going to waste my time with that. Just going to make sure to use another registry to do my searches from now on.

I have actually been thinking about how to do just this (register domains people researched but chose not to buy) for the past 3 years.

It makes perfect sense; you research a domain to see if it's available, take some time to think about it, get approval etc. and you come back and it's regged - if it was something that became important you're gonna pay a bit to get ownership.

Oh and by the way...it wasn't searching through godaddy that got my names taken. It was using the 3rd party service http://www.whois.sc

Simple fix to that, just write a script that searches for junk domain names such as dhlasjasljasdlasd.org ashsadsdahjasdlja.com yuiououd.net etc hehe they will waste alot of money if they reg that shit.

Yeah, we have all had domains get snapped up shortly after searching for them but this case is completely different because they were very specific domains and all had been snapped up within a day or 2 after I checked. And all by the same company.

There is a thread about this company on one of the domain boards but it is in their "member only" section so I can't read any of the postings.

I use a program that's very useful and quick for searches, etc.. from my desktop. Win32Whois.

http://www.gena01.com/win32whois/

expos...i too had very specific names taken.

but... anyways

looks like that company squats on domain names and has been in trouble before
http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/deci...2005-1087.html

thanks, I will use that from now on

http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/508460.htm

There they squatted on Citi-Bank domain names and when they were hit with a complaint they decided to go ahead and temporarily change the WHOIS over to Citi Bank in order to fool the arbitrators.

On Manila Industries, some of this may be helpful.
http://spamhuntress.com/wiki/Manila_Industries

Godaddy has had this issue for about 5 years. When I used to work for a top50 company we used to register a lot of domains, sometimes we just searched. The next day they were gone. There has to be a group doing it at godaddy.

Do you know who is behind this software? :(

Brujah,

thanks for the software tip :)

Been using geektools whois program for along time but this seems to work great.

Knowing they're using trojans and spyware, I would look into checking your system out to see if it's infected.
http://www.xploiter.com/security/netsphere.shtml

Probaly some under paid employee hawking off the list for a couple of thousand.

Yeah, never had this issue with any other registry. Not with domains getting snapped up within 24 hours anyway. Godaddy is a big enough company as well that there could be so many people who have access to the database. Just like the guys at AOL who have sold the AOL member lists to spammers.

If you want some fun and you think they are doing it based on searches, then send in a bot filled with bullshit names and bury them with crap domains... :)

Alex

hehe... somebody please do that!!!

If they're testing the names first, it won't matter. They can register 200,000 names today, and delete them a few days later.

you ever consider that it might be the same owner for whois.sc as the group that took yours and other domains?

I wouldn't think Jay (owner of Whois.sc) would be involved in this kind of thing, but if you look at the bottom of this page you'll see they do provide results for GoDaddy also.

http://www.whois.sc/info/xml-partners/

This is very very interesting. I am certain that the domain names that I searched for using Whois.sc would have never been registered otherwise...at least not within 24 hours.

The only thing I use on whois.sc now is the Name Spinner and the reverse I.P. tool. ESPECIALLY now that he has started listing domain names for sale. :disgust

Although I buy all my domains from godaddy and directnic, for some bizarre reason I only search with netsol.com and I've never had this problem, so maybe netsol is safe for searching (???????????).

yaa. well godaddy uses img human verification system
so.. .. but i think we can bypass that part
:)

I don't think its whois.sc as well.. i use them all the time and i found some realy nice names in the past and no one took them for a long time later.

but godaddy.. they are a bunch of ...

get my point.. its godaddy or someone at godaddy has setup a spy program or somthing to log this searchs.

and they know godaddy searches are done by real humans becouse of the image verification.

How did you came to this "wierd" conclusion?

Let me guess just because godaddy is big and offer low-price products you think they steal everybody rigth? :helpme :helpme :Oh crap

There is certainly something fucked up going on. There are other threads like this one that have popped up on other sites and they are talking about the same exact Manila Industries. All of the searches I did were on GoDaddy so it is highly likely that someone there is feeding the database to that company.

I had the same problem with whois.sc. and it seems they provide the search results to godaddy.

Same thing happened to me with whois.sc. I won't check availability using them anymore. There is something going on there.

I had a couple very unique domains in mind that had never been registered before that I found were available on a registrar search, but I didn't take them because I wasn't really planning on using them. So months later I search WhoIs.sc to see if they are still available and both suddenly get registered a few days later.

ok then
whois.sc is out for me.

I won't check availability using anyone except networksoutions anymore.

oh yaa.. guys check that you don't have spyware on your computers.. this could happen.. could be you have your browsing spyed on.

I ran into this several times, several years ago. I had clear ideas of what to develop/buy, but because I was lazy I thought I should wait until the next day........ Next day = poff....

it doesnt matter if its web based or desktop based, it still queries the registry

Yep, but not via a third party such as whois.sc or godaddy.

i could for sure verify this! they've registered most of the domains i was checking!!!
i fuckin' hate http://www.whois.sc

Whois.sc response
 

Hello everyone, I am Jay, the CEO of Whois.sc, we power searches at Network Solutions and GoDaddy. I can safely say, only two people have access to the search queries that generate suggestions. My CTO and I are the only ones with access. We testify in court and to law enforcement authorities all the time. I can safely guarantee no one else has access to the queries or those coming through people using our XML services.

Let me remind everyone that there are 47M active .COM domains and every year now another 10M domains get registered on top of that. Keep in mind that the average daily vocabulary spoken in a day is 3000 words. Most people only know about 65,000 words total.

ok, with all that in prospective, keep in mind at 102M domains have at one point been registered and are currently deleted. There are twice as many domains deleted right now then active. The likely hood that you came up with something unique is not that high. I need to be frank here, other people in the world of 6 billion people may produce the name you thought of before you did. A common technique to is cycling through those 102M domains that have been registered and hold 1 million of those domains active for 4 days, see what happens, then return them do the dead. In most cases if someone like Manila registers a domain, just wait 5 days and register it after they delete it.

There is no possible way what you type in whois.sc gets out to anyone. I know a lot about this industry and the people in it. No company that I know of does this practice. Not Godaddy, not anyone. I know it is easy to come to a conclusion based on the evidence you have, but it is staggering to think about how many domains are in a dead state right now and people are cycling through them. This is called Domain Tasting. (New term in the last year, but starting to get more common now). There are currently about 2 million domains a day now getting tasted. If you give me a few domains, I will look up the history of them and see if I can get the dates they were registered in the past. We have a huge database of when and where a domains were registered previously. Once someone registers it then it becomes public, then deleted, any of those 102M domains can be registered.

Jay
Whois.sc

this is some good reading thanks for posting it.. :thumbsup

This has happened to me before.

in my experience, after about 7 days they cancel the domain name and it becomes available again.

Great post and answers that question!
:thumbsup

it happened to me twice in the past,but i don't recall if it was through whois.sc or powerpipe.com. I'm almost confident due to the nature of the domains it wasn't a random event. I do not recall more details right now. I would be interested to see more on this issue.

Thanks for the post Jay, that was informative for sure.

:thumbsup

Someone I know told me of another service to 'watch' things through but never verified it, guess I have something to look at tommorow.

I'm curious now.

Interesting read.

another story with manila industries and domains taken

http://www.tiedtothetracks.com/story...ves/000873.htm

something tells me this person did a whois as well and domain(s) ended up registered by manila co. shortly after.

How the hell do you "taste" a domain for 4 days without buying it? :1orglaugh

Ok, Jay but I have had SEVERAL very specific domain searches registered by Manila recently. At first I just noticed that one domain I decided I wanted had been registered by them a day or 2 after I had searched for it. Then I got curious and typed in several other of the domains I had tried (and were available at that time) and they had also been registed within a day or 2 of me searching for them and had been snapped up by the exact same company.

None of these domains were even remotely related to each other so you can't say that they were just registering additional spellings or variations.

I see other simlilar discussions on the net about Manila Industries. Perhaps they are getting the search data at a higher level then your company? I guess they could be tapped into whatever database your company queries from.

Somebody point me to a registrar with a 5 day money back guarantee please.

Yunno, it's funny that people think just because a company provides a popular service used by thousands on the internet that they aren't corrupt or they don't have the potential for being misused by some bad guys out there.

Not saying anything necessarily about whois.sc, hell I use them too, but I am always wary about companies that can benefit from your advance information. I'm especially wary about companies that catch dropped domains for instance. There should be a lot of money made by having a script that rates, tracks and snatches domains that are searched and bidded on. Especially when it's YOUR service.

Plenty of horror stories about this if you look for em.

Pornwolf, I hear ya.. but in Jays case ( Whois.sc ) I think they would stand to lose a great deal more if they were doing something a bit unethical. With deals with major registrars, and profiting from the services they offer, I think their reputation stands to be harmed greatly. I don't think he would risk it. I believe what he said, the way he explained it, and that he believes it to be true. Trusting the registry (Verisign/Netsol) however, I wouldn't go that far.