Domain name tasting exploits the fact that someone registering a
domain can keep it for up to five days and then return it for free.
Unscrupulous operators are using that grace period to test domain
names to see if their advertising income exceeds their registration
costs for a year.
The process ties up millions of domain names at a time and
upsets advertisers who are paying for the display of adverts on
content-less pages that people quickly leave because they usually
arrive there by mistake.
ICANN, which oversees the grace period, is under pressure to
make changes to combat tasting and is already considering a change
to the refund process. Its board will decide in June whether to
accept ICANN management's proposal to keep 20 cents of the $6
charge to discourage bulk-registrations of domains for tasting.
Now a part of ICANN, the Generic Names Supporting Organisation
(GNSO), has recommended a change to the number of refunds any
registrar can claim on behalf of customers.
It wants the operators of generic top level domains (gTLDs) such
as .com or .org to be restricted in the refunds they can offer. It
has proposed that they only be allowed to offer refunds to 10% of
the newly registered domain names in any given month. If that
number is under 50 they will be allowed to refund up to 50
fees.
"An exemption may be sought for a particular month, upon the
documented showing of extraordinary circumstances," said a
statement from the GNSO. "The GNSO Council will consider public
comments and constituency impact statements regarding the draft
motion and incorporate them into a further draft for Council
consideration at its scheduled 17 April meeting."
The industry that has built up around the five-day grace period
can reportedly earn practitioners millions of pounds a year through
pay-per-click ads seen by people who visit these addresses and
their empty sites by mistake.
The practice is widely condemned because it wastes users' time
and advertisers' budgets, since they want to pay to have their ads
displayed on pages people want to visit rather than these empty
pages.
