Fergie's Tech Blog

In Bad Taste: John Levine on 'Domain Tasting'

John Levine writes over on CircleID:

So-called domain tasting is one of the more unpleasant developments in the domain business in the past year. Domain speculators are registering millions of domains without paying for them, in a business model not unlike running a condiment business by visiting every fast food restaurant in town and scooping up all of the ketchup packets.

Since 2003, the contract between ICANN and each unsponsored TLD registry (.biz, .com, .info, .net, .org, and .pro) has added an Add Grace Period (AGP) of five days during which a registrant can delete a newly registered domain and get a full refund. Although this provision was clearly intended to allow registrars to correct the occasional typo and spelling error in registrations, speculators realized that this allows them to try out any domain for five days for free.

As soon as the speculators (who call themselves “domainers") figured this out, they started using automated software to register domains like crazy. They put up web pages full of pay-per-click ads, keep the few that make money during the five days, and refund the rest. Many of the speculative domains are expiring ones, since those might already be indexed in Google and have some traffic, others are slightly misspelled versions of existing domains to catch traffic from people who make typing errors.

posted by Fergie @ 5/02/2006 10:39:00 AM