[anewguy9000]

got it, thanks. indeed looking again at the whois record, the registrant info is redacted, and the make offer link takes me to domain agents.

so i may have jumped to a conclusion here, but ultimately though my question remains: i searched a domain on namecheap, it was available, and then suddenly it is taken a couple days later. the domain itself appears unused and for auction, and the registrar is also, conveniently, namecheap. so if namecheap isn't the actual registrant holding it for ransom, are searches shared or sold to third parties looking for potentially valuable domains? whatever happened it's hugely suspect - so the net effect is that im hesitant to search with or use namecheap again for my next domain without some insight here