jtara - 4:09 pm on Jan 25, 2008 (gmt 0)

Tasting is the practice of "trying out" a domain for a few days. If it is not to one's liking, the domain is returned, and registration fee refunded (or never paid in the first place), possibly minus a very small "tasting fee".

Typically, a taster will put-up a revenue-producing "parking" site to test the revenue-producing potential of the domain.

Not sure what Google's involvement in tasting has been, though?

While they are an accredited registrar, I don't think they sell to the public. (Or do they, in conjunction with some of their services?) Nor do I think they've been speculatively tasting for their own, since the "rumor" says they now will not do this with "domains less than 5 days old".

So, perhaps this is talking about Google providing the monitization for OTHERS who are tasting domains?