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Domain Tasting "Officially Dead" Thanks To Cancellation Policy

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the plenty-of-other-shady-practices-left dept.

Ars Technica is reporting that domain tasting has been all but eradicated now that the full penalty for excessive cancellations has taken effect. "In 2008, ICANN decided to act. It allowed domain registrars to withdraw as many as 10 percent of their total registrations; they would face penalties for anything above that. Initially, ICANN adopted a budget that included a charge of $0.20 for each withdrawal above the limit, which was in effect from June 2008 to July of this year. Later, it adopted an official policy that raised the penalty to $6.75, the cost of a .org registration; that took effect in July 2009. The results have been dramatic. Even under the low-cost budget provisions, domain withdrawals during the grace period dropped to 16 percent of what they had been prior to its adoption. Once the heavy penalties took hold, the withdrawal rate dropped to under half a percent."

6 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. What was the point anyway?? by rodrigoandrade · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What was the purpose of "domain testing" anyway??

    1. Re:What was the point anyway?? by theskipper · · Score: 3, Interesting

      To be clear, a large portion of tasting involved picking up bulk names from the pending delete list. Money was made from domains that might have residual traffic after the delete. Park the domain for a few days then see if the adsense/affiliate revenue outweighed the annual fee. If not, drop it and get the refund.

      So typos would be a subset; not every tasted domain would be a typo.

  2. Re:The Many (Miss) Uses of Domain Tasting by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's easy - you can have a refund on any domain as long as you request it within n days and you don't set up valid DNS records for that domain during that period. If you set up working DNS entries then you're using the domain so you should be charged for it.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  3. Next, get registrars out of domain speculation by Animats · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The next step is to enforce ICANN rule 4.2.5 to prohibit registrars from warehousing or speculating in domains.

  4. Re:Heavy Penalties by amicusNYCL · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's not like scammers work with a single domain. $6.75 * 1,000 or 10,000 is certainly going to discourage some people from being a douchebag. These are people who make tiny amounts of money from a ton of places, $6.75 is enough to destroy each small revenue stream for them.

    It's sort of like when you take a penny from the tray at 7-11, except it's a much larger tray, and they take several million times.

    --
    "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
  5. Who knows how to get their money back. by lalena · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Besides the domain tasters, does anyone actually know how to get their money back for a domain? I've used several registrars, and I've never seen a link or a mention in a FAQ that I could get my money back if I make a typo. I'm sure it's in there, but just buried under mountains of fine print. For $10, it's my guess that most people figure it was their mistake and pay again. Only the shady people know about the policy.