Domain registration weirdness--spies watching

Ok--Check this :

I have been talking to a guy I know about us doing a website for his already written good articles plus adding his professional contact info. So I do a search on a Icann registery "whois" site to see if www.FirstnameLastname.com and www.DrLastname.com is available. He has an unusual name. I see that both are available and I email him to say so.

So he also goes to ck on a different registery site , he wants to do his own registering and own his own domain--he is techie--so when he decides to register both FirstnameLastname.com and DrLastName.com he sees that www.FirstnameLastname.com has ALREADY been registered 1 or 2 days before ! He quickly registers www.DrLastname.com and he asks me if it is gonna hurt him, not owning the www.FirstnameLastname.com doman with his own UNUSUAL name...I tell him that it all depends--if someone doesn't like him and makes a DrLastName Sucks site--and it is well optimized , it could be a drag. (Just ask Terminix)

It is too soon for the info on who registered his name to show up in a "whois" search---a couple weeks later he goes to www.FirstnameLastname.com and low and behold it says: "Buy this domain" ! And has ads on it and ad links and has doctor links & Dr references !!!! Only way that could happen was if the person snagging the domain knew the association with his name and the fact that he was also searching DrLastname on same night. Obviously, someone was watching us ck the domain available look-up as there is not anything much about him on the web at present.

SO...last night I remembered that and jumped up and ran to computer and went to my usual quick register spot ( i keep money in escrow there for one click, fast action moves)--it is an official Icann Registry place offering hosting , etc...and I trusted them , till now.

So I look to see if I can register www.LundyWilder.com just to keep some creep from registering it and putting porn on it. --Look at screen shot to see what I saw--look what came up--the search results told me that I could register every 'no-count' or foreign ending BUT that .com and .net were not open for registeration ---with no expaination given !!!!! They put a default question mark beside them instead of the 'available ' green check mark......hmmmmm.....what the hell is that about ????

I quickly went straight to NetSol, who originally was the first and only URL registering place in the universe. They said I could register my name in both .com and .net versions. Trouble is thatNetSol (Network Soultions) is expensive. But they offer a hosting package option now , it is not overpriced, and you get a good discount on domain registeration if you do a combo purchase, so I picked a hosting package real fast (remember I think someone at other look-up spot is watching that I searched on my name a few minutes back) ...and fast as I could , i told them I wanted to register both www.lundywilder.com and www.lundywilder.net
and it accepted the registeration. Cost me $200 all together. But I secured them for 3 years each, plus I have a year of hosting for one of them if I want to use it.

That was last night and I have the confirmation email now--whew----

I find it despicable that employees of the domain registeration companies watch to see what names people check on--then quickly register it to sell back to you. My PhD friend did end up buying back www.HisName.com but they clipped him for $50 in the process. Could have been a lot more, he considers himself lucky--and we both learned a lesson.