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23 Comments
Domain Tasting
You are much too nice and way too optimistic about ICANN and domain tasting.
The grace period should be eliminated altogether. When registering a domain name, all that is needed right before you hit submit for payment, is to ask the registrant to look over the domain name they are about to register to make sure they spelled it correctly and confirm that this is the domain name they wish to register.
Domain Tasting takes millions of domain names away from users that SHOULD be available to register for legitimate business owners or people who just want a domain name for their personal website. When one domain taster drops a name, another domain taster registers it for another 5 days.
More people are needed to monitor what ICANN is doing. It affects you and everyone who uses the web, whether you own domain name sor not.
More about GA list monitoring in http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/GA.list-monitoring.html
Currently, there is a limit of FIVE postings per day on the GA mailing list
To subscribe (or unsubscribe) to the General Assembly list, please send an email to with the words subscribe ga (or unsubscribe ga) in the body of the message.
Make your voice heard and monitor what goes on behind the scenes with ICANN.
More about this in my post responding to your article at http://blogs.pn/domain-tasting-and-icann/
Great article. This subject
Great article. This subject often flies under the internet radar and deserves a follow up in my opinion. There are some great stories out there of domain-tasting not only buying anything and everything, but scraping data from domain searches. For example, while doing research to see if a domain is available you type in "mybestdomainnameDOTcom" while searching for several others. After deciding on that one you find out that it's somehow been registered. This way the tasters have a chance to not only get free ad revenue while 'tasting' but are more likely to be contacted by someone who wants to buy the domain name in earnest, for a much steeper price. The best course of action currently is to just wait five days and try purchasing it then after the taste test.
Still, there are entire companies that appear to be subsisting heavily on this model. My research into it a 6 months or so was eye opening, even after working in the biz for some time and handling large numbers of domain purchases.
Exactly
Here are some more articles on domain tasting.
http://www.circleid.com/posts/historical_analysis_domain_tasting/
http://www.circleid.com/posts/domain_tasting_in_spotlight/
http://www.circleid.com/posts/criminal_checks_domain_name_tasting_kiting...
Domain Taste Testing
I paid $35 for my first domain in the 1990's registration process. My decision to purchase my domain was carefully thought out. I was a very small startup business at that time, and the $35 fee was more burden than asset on my very limited budget. If there was a grace period to cancel and obtain a refund, no one told me, not that I would have done so.
Sadly, maybe we need to return to those higher priced registrations for the abusers of the system. I am no authority, but I believe it is impossible to justify the purchase of 10,000 domains at one time for any legitimate purpose, so it must be either a dishonest business practice or criminal intent. The whole idea seems absurd to me, and should never have been allowed. It is ridiculous that anyone could purchase even 10 domains at once and be allowed to return more than one of them for refund within a few days. Once the domain is attached to a website on the Internet (test driven), no refund in any amount should be given for returning that domain name. There should be no free ride. The domains were taken off the market for 5 days and unavailable to other potential purchasers. Further, they may return with Internet baggage (illegal or objectionable uses) attached to them for the next purchaser to be burdened with. Before a returned domain name is put back on the market, there should be checks to determine whether the name was used for any criminal purpose. The surrendering owner of the domain should pay a fee to support this investigation.
This category of “test drive” practice is not something that would be allowed in standard business practices, and should not be allowed here either. Purchasing 10,000 domain names would be around $60,000 at minimum. In my mind, this would be no different than me going to my local auto dealership and purchasing 3 vehicles off the lot, letting my family members drive them as much and as far as they want to for 5 days, and then returning 2 of them to the dealership and expecting a full refund, when the only thing wrong with them is that I don’t want them anymore. It would not happen at the auto dealership, and it should not happen here.
A large multinational corporation might need to register a few hundred at one time, but they will all be linked to the same corporate website(s) operated by the company previously. It would be unlikely they would purchase any of the domains without having carefully validated the need and selection of each domain for the intended business purpose. It would be extremely unlikely a return of any of the domains would be necessary, because reputable businesses aren’t normally that sloppy in their business practices. Let’s not reward those who are.
Your comment Cindy
Further, they may return with Internet baggage (illegal or objectionable uses) attached to them for the next purchaser to be burdened with. Before a returned domain name is put back on the market, there should be checks to determine whether the name was used for any criminal purpose. The surrendering owner of the domain should pay a fee to support this investigation.
Spot on! They could be blacklisted by search engines because of something they did and the next registrant who actually buys the domain name for a legitimate purpose gets punished.
What about registering a domain name, sending out millions of spam emails for 4 days, then dropping the domain name back into the pool?
The grace period allows for that. Some still think this is a minor problem. People need to research this. It is serious.
ICANN only wants to find a way to make their fee out of it and ignore the harm, to everyone else.
Domain Taste Testing
Only a quasi-goverment organization would have such a silly return policy. If you buy them you own them, it's that simple or limit returns to 1 per month just incase a buyer makes a mistake.
Domain Tasting
Hi,
As they say in French, "Je ne suis pas né de la dérnière pluie." (I wasn't born yesterday).
Nevertheless, I was fairly horrified by your article on Domain Tasting. I've got nothing against finding loopholes in legislation - in fact I dislike bureaucracy.
However, does GOOGLE care about registering thousands of domain names or are they just happy about people clicking on Adsense ads?
Google France is giving me a hard time because I have a couple of Google accounts and won't let me have an Adsense account - it's a catch22 situation - I cancel an account and then they tell me to create a new account for adsense - I do this and they say I can't have two accounts - it just goes round and round.
Is this just GOOGLE France acting like French Bureaucrats or is Google like this everywhere?
Best wishes,
Andrew Bayly or should I say Franz Kafka?
bravo
Took long enough.
I, for one, hope this practice is stopped in all its forms. These guys and spammers are the bottom feeders of the Internet. I'm shocked ICANN has let them get away with it for this long.
Certainly there must be some Nigerian scams they could be peddling instead.
Domain Tasting
Domain "tasting" should definitely be stopped. Having all the quality domains snapped up by a select few companies so they can fill the pages with PPC is bad for almost everyone, from people who would otherwise use the domains to build worthwhile websites thru to the poor suckers who waste more of their time visiting web pages which are nothign more than advertising billboards. Of course the main beneficiaries are the tasters, the tastees and the PPC promoters so we shouldn't expect anything to change too soon.
Domain Tasting
Domain "tasting" should definitely be stopped. Having all the quality domains snapped up by a select few companies so they can fill the pages with PPC is bad for almost everyone, from people who would otherwise use the domains to build worthwhile websites thru to the poor suckers who waste more of their time visiting web pages which are nothign more than advertising billboards. Of course the main beneficiaries are the tasters, the tastees and the PPC promoters so we shouldn't expect anything to change too soon.
ICANN domain tasting
All I can say is this. They are out of their tree. So ok it is like a wine tasting. Any wine tasting I have ever attended required some form of fee or donation to be made so you paid for what you got. So now what if the domain were a car. Would you buy a brand new car without a test drive first? Even if everyone told you it was the best you would be a fool not to take it out for a test drive. So if you can not buy a domain and try it out for a bit, decide you do not want it and drop it the only difference is that this test drive cost you money but had it been any other physical product then you would have received the test drive for FREE. Sounds like a frivolous attempt at job security to me. How about ICAN cracks down on spammers at the domain level or spreaders of viri. Would that not make more sense? On a last note...
If you were to buy say somedomain[dot]com and were unable to do anything with it that is your failure not mine so by you throwing it back in the jar others like myself who may have a far greater chance or vision to make the domain useful may have at it. Anyway that is my thoughts on the whole thing. Hopefully if they decide to govern anything it will be something for the greater good. Maybe I have it all wrong to so who knows.
contradiction
Not sure you understand this. When they drop them, you never see that the domain name is available. They can re-register it or another taster can do so.
This is actually keeping millions of domain names unavailble to people who have a vision to use the domain name.
Just suggesting you read up on just how many domain names are unavailable due to domain tasting.
http://www.circleid.com/posts/domain_in_bad_taste/
http://www.circleid.com/posts/how_domain_name_tasting_works/
http://www.circleid.com/posts/impact_of_automated_domain_registration_ta...
Those articles are written by experts. I bet you have a different view once you read them.
Domain Tasting
I agree that this practice should not be allowed. Ultimately it will cost the government more fees and time to reverse these registrations. That extra cost will eventually hit all buyers. So for those that are buying in bulk, all will be punished.
That doesn't seem just to me. And I hate being punished because of those individuals that would abuse our system. Its already bad enough that they are diluting Pay-Per-Click advertising.
It would be easy enough to solve. Any bulk order of 100 domains plus should have to forfeit their cancellation option.
grace period
Can you give me legitimate reasons why we need a 5 day grace period at all?
I agree that everyone should not be punished, but a simple confirmation before submitting your purchase to make sure the domain names you entered are correct is enough, don't you think?
Domain name
What a joke. No wonder there is so much garbage on the net. Make everybody pay for everything(no refunds) and that will get rid of the riff-raff. You want a quality internet, pay for it. You want free? Ya know what you get...
No Refunds
Exactly
Domain Kiting
There are companies that have been set up just for this purpose (domain kiting).
Read:
http://kameir.com/domain-kiting.html
Superb News
This is superb news if they actually go through with it. I think all small web workers and businesses, and people searching online could do with there being a lot less background noise blocking and fogging up the real content.
NeedNewEmployees
The person who posted this should find a job at McDonalds
"If ICANN did away with the five-day grace period on bulk buys only," suggests Susan Coppersmith, Director of Sales for iEntry, Inc., the publisher of WebProNews, "it would possibly help clean up organic search could actually help the traditional small business owner be found a little easier. I think it would also make the quality of the click better in paid search campaigns."
Susan seems to forget domains registered for four days are not going to appear in the Google SERPs..
Next I need to ask how this could help small businesses be found easier?
Most domain buyers are not buying mom & pops printing shop business name.....
She works for ientry???
Can I get an application for her position...good lord she knows zilch....
I'm surprised you allowed her to post such ridiculous statements which have zero validity behind them.
Marketers expect better!!!!!
SERPS
They can register a name for 4 days. Drop it. Get a refund. Then re-register for another 4 days.
Some companies have partner companies that help each other by re-registering what the other domain taster dropped and vice versa.
They keep these domain names out of the pool for as long as they like.
She is wrong though about that being a solution.
The best solution is to eliminate the grace period altogether.
ICANN won't do that as long as google makes money from it and if they find a way to also make money from domain tasting.
Vint Cerf heads ICANN.
Vint Cerf works for Google.
Conflict of Interest?
Mom and Pop
I disagree, THEY ARE BUYING MOM AND POP NAMES. For example, www.BulwarkPest.com is Bulwark Exterminating's official website. They bought it 8 years ago. At that time, no one had any idea that pay-per-clicks would provide and avenue for "cyber-squating".
So BulwarkPestControl.cim and Bulwarkexterminating.cim were both bought. Now ICann has provided us an avenue to retrieve those domains since they are copy righted, but that process will now cost us $800. The guy hosting the domains requested $2000... what a joke.
Why not be productive in life instead?
Does Bulwark share some of that responsibility for not registering other possible domain names? Sure, just as much as Joey Tanker shares some responsibility for not having a car because he didn't pay the Mafia for protection...
ouch
bad morning?
I think you missed the point. The four days thing isn't the crux of that argument...bulk buyers would keep the profitable domains, optimize them and slap ads on them which proivde no real value to the end user...if the search engines aren't on their game (and they're not often) the made-for-adsense sites would, after a certain amount of time and with enough links gain in the SERPs, thus displacing more deserving sites.
First check out this site:
http://www.rif.org/
and then look into anger management.
PS. I heard Home Depot's hiring, no tests
Marketers' expectations...
I don't want to get in a war of words here, but Ms Coppersmith's reply was quite reasonable.
You may be right, it may take a while for anything to get into Google, but personally I think there is a way around it.
My companies, A in Atlanta, B in Boston and C in Cleveland could do a rotating bulk acquisition from the three different registrar's we use. (If I was richer, I could have twenty six companies.) The lists could be jumbled or shuffled with other lists between companies so no-one could easily see what I'm doing.
Then I could not only test the market response to owning all possible versions of JoesElectric.com, I could find out how well it does in the search engines because I would have the identical stuff on-line for several grace periods. I would think six weeks - or nine registrations would pretty much cover it.
Meanwhile Joe has to settle for JoesElectricofAlbanyNewYork.com.
So... preventing bulk use of grace periods would work. At least in the short term.
As for working at McDonald's, keep the personal attacks confined to appropriate places.
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