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Fastest way is to check whether it exists in the nightly zone file, and then a DNS lookup, and whois query.

What is the nightly zone file?

It is zone file from the last night (or day). It requires free account from Verisign for .COM and .NET. I used such account for a while.

edit: "Zone file" is the file containing the records of all registered domains in a zone (.com or .net). Last time I checked it was something 80M records for .com

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