Seltzer began his investigation after an email from a reader who complained that a company known as Chesterton Holdings had registered her query, placed a landing page at the domain and then dumped the site several days later only after seeing poor traffic results.
The Chesterton Holdings site, which gives virtually no information about the company or its owners, offers visitors the following description of its services:
"We acquire domain names through an automated process rather than by any process that would intentionally infringe on any person's rights. If you have any questions about a domain, please submit your query to us below. It is our policy to transfer a domain name to any entity that, in our reasonable opinion, has a legitimate claim. We will promptly transfer a domain name to you if you can show us that you have a legitimate claim."
According to Seltzer, his concerned reader had used CNET’s domain search page, which offers meta-search results from several services, including Web.com, Dot.FM, Enic.cc and APlus.net.
Seltzer ran his own domain queries using the same methods, finding that in less than 30 hours Chesterton Holdings had registered his queries.
A call placed by Seltzer’s reader to APlus.net suggested that Chesterton monitors WhoIs queries, something that Seltzer believes to be impossible.
Seltzer contacted CNET to inform them of the problem. While neither he nor CNET had any concrete answers, Seltzer decided to post.
“With a whole lot more testing, I think I could figure out the source of Chesterton's domain name feed, but I decided it was time to get the story out first,” he said.
Seltzer posited four theories on how Chesterton had accessed the WhoIs queries:
An XBIZ story in May reported that add/drop domain registration schemes were on the rise, according to GoDaddy.com CEO Bob Parsons. Practitioners of the schemes take advantage of the five-day window before they are charged for the domain, meaning that a company such as Chesterton, if Seltzer’s allegations are correct, could register compromised queries without incurring any registration costs.
Despite Seltzer’s efforts the mystery remains.
“Even though I've speculated on possibilities that are more or less likely than others, I don't think I'm close to a definitive explanation,” he said. “All I really know is that there's no legitimate way to do what Chesterton Holdings is doing, and I hope they finally get called for it.”