ICANN just releases a report on the domain tasting, known also as domain kiting, where the registrants use the five-day “grace-period” at the beginning os a GTLD (generic top-level domain) to test it. If the domain is a success, it is kept by the registrant. These are usually previously used and expired, misspelling of other known sites, or generic term domain names. Some of these domain names are still indexed by the search engines and have links back, so there is enough traffic to exceed the cost of the registration.
The practitioners register many hundreds of thousands of domain names under this practice, with these temporary registrations far exceeding the number of domain names actually licensed.
In April 2006, out of 35 million registrations, only a little more than 2 million were permanent or actually purchased. By February 2007, the CEO of GoDaddy reported that of 55.1 million domain names registered, 51.5 million were canceled and refunded just before the 5 day grace period expired and only 3.6 million domain names were actually kept. (Bob Parsons)
ICANN’s Generic Names Supporting Organization (”GNSO”) Council released the Initial Report on Domain Tasting as a first step in the avoiding of such practices. The report is open for public comments for 20 days, when it will be release a final report that will be the base for a specific policy.
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