Domain tasting is finally banned - its safe to go back to trying out domain names
The sneaky scam of Domain Tasting is over. Historically when searching for a new domain name, if you type it into a domain provider and then don't
register it immediately, you might find that the domain provider would pick it up for themselves and hold it for at least a week.
If during that time you wanted to buy the domain you have to pay a higher rate, basically the domain provider was allowed to "taste" the domain and keep it for free for a short period.
Another way Domain tasters managed to make money is by registering variants of some domain name in bulk, and direct them all to a simple webpage that harvested revenue from advertising services (Google, for example, acted to block the practice around the same time ICANN did).
These could be used to quickly grab users looking for something related to a current event, or to sample a wide range of typos for a popular site; any names with staying power could be kept, while the rest could be discarded after a few days at no cost.
In this way a massive amount of domain names were being taken out of service to the wider community and with no outlay made money for Domain tasters. For this to be profitable to the Domain tasters they had to use a massive amount of domains however.
In 2008, ICANN decided to act. It allowed domain registrars to withdraw as many as 10 percent of their total registrations; they would face penalties for anything above that.
Initially, ICANN adopted a budget that included a charge of $0.20 for each withdrawal above the limit, which was in effect from June 2008 to July of this year. Later, it adopted an official policy that raised the penalty to $6.75, the cost of a .org registration; that took effect in July 2009.
The results have been dramatic. Even under the low-cost budget provisions, domain withdrawals during the grace period dropped to 16 percent of what they had been prior to its adoption. Once the heavy penalties took hold, the withdrawal rate dropped to under half a percent. Essentially, as the report's title states, we've seen "the end of domain tasting."
What does this mean for us? We can go back to typing domain names into the domain Providers and know that we have a chance to get them at a later time.
http://arstechnica.com/web/...
By netchicken:
posted on 30-8-2009
If during that time you wanted to buy the domain you have to pay a higher rate, basically the domain provider was allowed to "taste" the domain and keep it for free for a short period.
Another way Domain tasters managed to make money is by registering variants of some domain name in bulk, and direct them all to a simple webpage that harvested revenue from advertising services (Google, for example, acted to block the practice around the same time ICANN did).
These could be used to quickly grab users looking for something related to a current event, or to sample a wide range of typos for a popular site; any names with staying power could be kept, while the rest could be discarded after a few days at no cost.
In this way a massive amount of domain names were being taken out of service to the wider community and with no outlay made money for Domain tasters. For this to be profitable to the Domain tasters they had to use a massive amount of domains however.
In 2008, ICANN decided to act. It allowed domain registrars to withdraw as many as 10 percent of their total registrations; they would face penalties for anything above that.
Initially, ICANN adopted a budget that included a charge of $0.20 for each withdrawal above the limit, which was in effect from June 2008 to July of this year. Later, it adopted an official policy that raised the penalty to $6.75, the cost of a .org registration; that took effect in July 2009.
The results have been dramatic. Even under the low-cost budget provisions, domain withdrawals during the grace period dropped to 16 percent of what they had been prior to its adoption. Once the heavy penalties took hold, the withdrawal rate dropped to under half a percent. Essentially, as the report's title states, we've seen "the end of domain tasting."
What does this mean for us? We can go back to typing domain names into the domain Providers and know that we have a chance to get them at a later time.
http://arstechnica.com/web/...