ICANN: Domain Tasting "May Be Causing Problems"

Security and Stability Advisory Committee of ICANN

[engine]

In some cases, however, the committee found that a separate practice of domain name tasting may be causing problems. That refers to someone testing the financial viability of a name for up to five days and then returning it for a full refund, using a loophole in registration policies. Domain tasting can tie up millions of Internet addresses, including ones someone checks but does not buy.

Separately, ICANN has floated a proposal to charge its existing fee of 20 cents per domain name even if the name is returned, making tasting masses of names more expensive.

During ICANN meetings in New Delhi this week, many parties complained that the fee would penalize legitimate returns, such as ones to correct for typos, said Paul Twomey, ICANN's chief executive. The board took no action Friday.

ICANN: Domain Tasting "May Be Causing Problems" [ap.google.com]

Related:

ICANN: Domain Front Running Generally "Misunderstandings"
[webmasterworld.com...]

[jmccormac]

Typical! Perhaps ICANN should change their name to ICANNOT. What a useless bunch!

Regards...jmcc

[walkman]

oh please. You screw up and lose $0.20. Big freaking deal.

Now if you register 12 million names a day...than maybe, that's your problem. Personally, I'd make it $1.

[Lord Majestic]

Make it $20 for starters and going up for bulk orders - it hard to get a decently named domain name these days, all thanks to those grabbing millions of them only to put up PPC ads on them. Which developed country would allow a handful of businesses to buy most of high-street shops only to keep them closed with big banners on them telling shoppers to go buy stuff elsewhere? This kind of activity (grabbing massive real estate but not using it) is clearly anti-competitive. Grrrrrrrrr.

[jmccormac]

The people in ICANN are the fools who created the problem. Either they fix it or they have to get fixed.

The problem is that millions of domains were being tasted each day. Between 01/July/2007 and 01/August/2007, these are the stats:

Month ¦.com zone ¦ New doms¦ Deleted ¦
Jul2007 ¦ 69277106 ¦ 7204593 ¦ 4971446 ¦
Aug2007 ¦ 71499815 ¦ 8396939 ¦ 6174230 ¦

The zonefile samples are from the first of each month.

These are just the figures for the .com zonefile. When PIR introduced their restocking fee, the tasters and auction registrars buying up the entire .org drop each day stopped. ICANN by their incompetence and failure to act are facilitating this corrupt process.

Regards...jmcc