In the world of securities, it’s a well-known illegal practice that occurs when a stock broker executes orders on his own account before filling orders previously submitted by his customers. Even before the stock market came into existence, American settlers in the late 19th century discovered ways to pre-emptively file a claim on a parcel of unoccupied, but desirable, territory.
Now front running seems to have leapt from the worlds of pioneers and stock brokers into the realm of the Internet as domain name front running, which is the practice whereby someone gets wind of demand for an unclaimed domain name and nabs it before the prospective buyer has a chance to purchase it.
