It's scary out there in Domainland and we've been watching/studying it for years.
ICANNT is corrupt and puts a tax without representation on all of us, They sell accredations without meaning and take no actions against any group if there isn't some big bucks in it for them.
Verislime and the registries all do a number of things to take advantage and compete with their own patrons. Most registrars are in no way friends to domainers. They are your competition and will mine whatever data you provide them with.
Whois searches are monitored by many entities, along with very sophisticated programs that monitor Overture, Alexa, Google, Yahoo, the larger news services, blogs and forums my friend.
I'm surprised by the naivity. Domainers will jump to use popular ppc services in the face of these same services data mining every name you submit, checking the traffic reports and registering similar names, singular or plural versions, addon varieties, availabilty in other extensions or whatever. The same ppc services have subs or affiliates that monitor whois searches and taste what their clients are studying. Domainers will jump to use large registrars that do all of these same things and much more not in the interest of their customers. No rules and lots of fraud.
Edited to add that naming names would surprise a lot of members here I'm sure. Tempting.