Im not typically critical of Icann. They have some very bright people on their board and tend to do the right thing most of the time. They saw the troubles and downside of .xxx and were wise enough to refuse to grant the extension. They were instrumental in allowing people other than Network Solutions sell domain names which created competition resulting in lower prices and better service for customers. But this time they dropped the ball.

I am talking about their recent ruling finding that registars (namely Network Solutions) can "front run" domains. What this means is if you go to Network Solutions website and do a search to see if a domain name is available and then dont immediately buy it Network Solutions may choose to hold that name for a short time. So you could search for a name then come back a few hours later to buy it and now it is frozen and you may have to pay a larger premium price for your domain.

There are two basic schools of thought about why they do this. First they want to profit from your desired domain either by charging you more for it or parking it with advertising on it. Second is that it forces you to buy it from them. You cant search on their site then run off and buy it from a discount registar. There have been cases where people search for a domain name at Network Solutions. Then go to register it somewhere else and it is suddenly no longer availible. If they go back to Network Solutions, however, the name can still be registered because Netsol grabbed it once you searched for it. You now have no choice but to pay their price if you want the domain.

ICANN has done their investigation and they have found that there is nothing wrong with this practice. To me it just not right. To me it is like if you went into a store and looked at something then left and came back to buy it an hour later only now they have raised the price on it because they know there was interest in it  and they wont let youto buy that product somewhere else.

Okay, Im ending my rant. Just wanted to let you know. If you are looking for domain look them up at the registar you are going to use to buy them buy them once you find them.