Have you ever gone to register a domain name, only to discover that that between the time you made your whois search (perhaps you looked it up during your lunch break at work), and the time that you purchased it (say, when you came home in the evening), that the domain name was suddenly no longer available? That the domain name you once thought could be yours for 12 euros at Gandi was now being sold on a restricted basis for a higher price and at a different registrar?