[jerf]

It is trivially testable. I've tested it myself a few times, against a few different companies, just for fun. I've never seen it happen.

If you imagine ordering all the domains in order of desirability, where the most desirable are long gone, and nobody wants "nsejrx8oesrjasrjb.com" (and even if they want an obfuscated domain, they don't want that obfuscated domain), there is a middle ground where it's not worth pre-registering but if you see an indication of interest it may push you over, especially if you have a cheap back door for registration as registrars do. In that case, the only ones sensible to front-run are the ones in that middle ground. It is possible that I never chose a domain that triggered such an algorithm. That said, as I was aware of this possibility at the time, I did deliberately try to come up with a combination of tasty & tempting words in a new format that looked like maybe someone would really want it, and I never could get the hypothetical algorithms to bite.

Take a crack at it if you're interested; it really isn't that hard or a big investment in time.