how to get domain and avoid monitoring sites who reg when searched

I owned a domain that was stolen from me last year. It expired earlier this week and I want to know if it was renewed.

I do not want to just go and check the whois as I have read all over about companies that monitor searches and then reg the name themselves.

It is not a particularly useful name to anyone else but I don't want to bring attention to it by searching and such making it look like it is popular.

Is there anywhere I can check the whois without the name being grabbed when I check?

thx for the advice

 

I think you should check it from the registrar's site. Not sure if this will be helpful but as general because you are not using any third party site, there will be less chance that it will be logged.

 

I use http://www.whois.net and I have not had any problems with them that I'm aware of.

 

You can check it wherever you want but if it's free, reg it immediately so it doesn't happen again. If it's already taken, no harm done checking the whois.

 

How?

Anyway, to answer your question, why not check with the same source that all
registrars go through, especially if it's a .com?

http://registrar.verisign-grs.com/whois

There's a more techie way to do it, though I forgot how.

Of course, if you can't even trust that, I don't know who you can.

 

Better to login to your account with an intent to purchase and then search. Sometimes its not monitering but 2 ppl can also think of the same names.