ESTDomains: Registrations starting at 99c

Estonia-based domain registrar ESTDomains.com (Critical Internet, Inc.) is currently running a "99c" promotion for .INFO and .ORG domain registrations. However, any renewals are regularly-priced transactions.
Other TLDs come cheaper as usual as well.
The promotion is valid until June 2007.

Prices for resellers with total amount
of operations above $500:

Extension

Registration:

Renewal:

Transfer:

.com

$5.75

$5.75

$5.75

.net

$5.75

$5.75

$5.75

.biz

$5.19

$5.19

$5.19

.us

$5.29

$5.29

$5.29

.name

$5.75

$5.75

$5.75

.cc

$17.99

$17.99

$17.99

.tv

$24.99

$24.99

$24.99

.in

$11.00

$11.00

$11.00

.co.in

$6.00

$6.00

$6.00

.net.in

$6.00

$6.00

$6.00

.org.in

$6.00

$6.00

$6.00

.gen.in

$6.00

$6.00

$6.00

.firm.in

$6.00

$6.00

$6.00

.ind.in

$6.00

$6.00

$6.00

.info

*$0.99

$5.75

$5.75

.org

**$0.99

$5.75

$5.75

*    - promo-action until 30th June 2007.
** - promo-action until 30th June 2007 with some limitations.

Source: ESTDomains (2007-02-19 15:09:59)

Domain hijack by Whois research?

Paranoia about Whois Hijacks are as old as the service itself.
How can you be sure that your favourite Whois site does not hijack your domain research? You can't!
They might as well log all queries to a database, check the value each available domains and register every valueable domain which is available before you have the chance to register it yourself.

Larry Seltzer of eWeek.com has found out about a company called Chesterton Holdings which lives by this concept. They managed to get ahold of the CNet Whois query and happily register every domain they come across, let it rest for 4 days and delete it within the 5 days grace period for domain registrars at zero cost. Automatic domain squatting at its best. As an actual user, you have no chance.

More on eWeek.com (see source)...

So, which web whois service can you trust?
I've been using whois.sc for several years now, never was a competitive name snapped before I could register it. The service itself moved to domaintools.com now, but you can still query their service by calling http://whois.sc/domain.com via your browser. You may need to register if you stress their servers too much (25 queries per day I think), but registration is free and is well worth it.

Source: Larry Seltzer, eWeek.com Security News (2006-07-27 00:47:53)