Network Solutions’ new sales technique: domain scalping

I just had a delightfully sinister experience trying to reserve a domain name for a website. A friend and I were brainstorming names and checking their availability — I used GoDaddy, he used Network Solutions. We settled on a name and I registered it with GoDaddy… only to receive a notification that the name was taken. A whois revealed a “clientHold” status on the domain name.

So I called GoDaddy to ask them what was the story. The salesman groaned; apparently, since last month, Network Solutions will instantly register and squat for a full five days on any domain name typed into its “check domain availability” field. Yep. The moment you check availability, it’s taken. By Network Solutions. And you can only buy it through them, no one else.

Is this legal? It’s certainly not ethical. As a web professional, I am deeply troubled by banditry, and even moreso when it’s perpetrated by a major corporation. It’s a weird form of Heisenberg’s Law of quantum physics, applied to web chicanery, where asking if a domain name is available instantly renders it unavailable.

Whoever approved this new policy at Network Solutions should be flogged. Then fired. Then Network Solutions should be eaten by pigs.

I haven’t revealed the domain name in question because I’m going to wait out the five day period and register it with GoDaddy, who, for the record, does not use this kind of skeezy shanghai-ing with their check availability field.

Has anyone else run into this?