I've been trying to move domain registration and DNS hosting for darcynorman.net from GoDaddy to Dreamhost for a couple of months. It's been a long and frustrating process, involving faxing my driver's license to Arizona to somehow prove I am who I say I am.
I just logged into my Dreamhost account to check on the status (still hasn't finalized - they sure did set it up in a hurry, but it takes a looooong time to switch off of GoDaddy). On a lark, I tried adding registration for darcynorman.com. But Dreamhost's registration utility complained that the domain was already taken.
Mwaaaah? Another D'Arcy Norman out there? Lemme check that out. A quick whois darcynorman.com turned up this:
Domain Name: DARCYNORMAN.COM
Registrar: GO DADDY SOFTWARE, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com
Name Server: CNS1.CANADIANWEBHOSTING.COM
Name Server: CNS2.CANADIANWEBHOSTING.COM
Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
Updated Date: 16-mar-2006
Creation Date: 16-mar-2006
Expiration Date: 16-mar-2007Oh, wait. No. It's a domain squatter. Sitting on my name, assumedly hoping for a portion of the mad cash this blog generates. Mad cash, I tell you. Some lame squatter leech decided to register my name in the hopes I'd pay a ransom to get it back. At least the squatter is using a Canadian service provider to park the DNS for the domain. I guess that's better than having it offshored to Moscow or something.
The combination of cheap domain registrations and "secure/private" registrations where you can hide behind a proxy make this practice possible. When I register domains, I need to go through CIRA verification, accept agreements about usage, etc... But these roaches can register other people's names and park them for ransom. Rules (like locks) are for the honest people.
Screw you, squatter. I just went and registered darcynorman.ca - the only other variant of the domain I'd care about. Go ahead and squat on the rest, you rat bastage.