ICANN is an organization responsible for overseeing the Internet, including domain registrars such as GoDaddy. ICANN has copped a lot of criticism over the years, because besides collecting its own "ICANN tax", it has done very little to keep the registrars in line. Finally though after heated criticism and a major law suit, ICANN is stirring.
On April 17 ICANN voted to end the practice of "domain tasting". This is a trick unscrupulous registrars use to reserve a domain name, sell advertising on it, then return it for a full refund at the end of a 5 day period. Whenever you mistype a domain and get one of those spammy search pages, you've just encountered a domain taster. A variation called "domain front-running" is where you check on a domains availability, and the registrar reserves it so you can only buy it from them. If you don't go ahead with the purchase, after a five day period they release it using the same trick.
Once ratified, this will make ICANN's 20 cent per domain name fee non-refundable. At the end of the five day period, the registrar loses the 20c. The original idea was this would protect registrars against customers who reneged on paying, but as we've seen it's a loophole many registrars have exploited ruthlessly. Truth is, this won't end domain front-running outright since 20c isn't a big expense compared to the chance of locking up a customer who may pay hundreds, but it advertising is far less lucrative. Many domains won't even make back that 20c.
It's good to see ICANN doing something. It's their job after all, and they should have stopped this years ago. Even Bob Parsons has complained about domain tasting in the past, though this may be through lost business rather than pure altruism. (Memo to Bob: If you're worried about lost business, spend an evening looking over Nodaddy.com - We were once GoDaddy customers too.)
Source: John Levine
Posted: Apr 21, 2008 6:59
Link:
http://www.circleid.com/posts/84217_icann_gnso_kill_domain_tasting/
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