[ds9]

Yes, it's called front-running. There have been accusations against some registrars in the tech news.

I just go to register as soon as I'm sure I would like the domain name. That way, worst case it's already registered, best case there's minimal opportunity for front runners.

Even trying it in a browser might alert someone monitoring DNS for interesting NXDOMAIN replies. (Yes, this may be paranoid, but it's hard to keep up with the nefarious tricks that actually go on)