Domain Kiting under microscope
Domain kiting targeted, and NetworkSolutions gets to point their finger at "Domain Tasting" as the reason for their long-established practice of "Front running Domains" and the whole mess is about to get ugly...
If you've followed my columns in the past several months, you'll know that "Domain Tasting" is one of the worst practices to be sanctioned by ICANN. Your SafeNet volunteers have been aiding Knujon and others in building a substantial case against the policy that lets the crooks get an advantage.
Last week ICANN announced they are 'considering' a 20-cent restocking charge for domains turned back in the last moments of the 5-day 'tasting' period.
Of course, you know how ICANN operates:
The first mention of a "consideration" means they are "thinking about" investigating the feasibility of researching candidates to sit on a panel to explore the possibility of establishing a new research department to begin developing a RFP to discover the feasibility of appointing a taskforce to establish the criteria by which ICANN can begin the process of investigating the feasibility of charging a 20-cent restocking charge for declined, tasted domains. (Translates to: 5 years later, everyone has forgotten the original problem and proposal, and nothing gets done.)
According to Wikipedia,
"In April 2006, out of 35 million registrations, only a little more than 2 million were permanent or actually purchased. By February 2007, the CEO of GoDaddy reported that of 55.1 million domain names registered, 51.5 million were canceled and refunded just before the 5 day grace period expired and only 3.6 million domain names were actually kept."
This is a practice known as domain tasting, or more appropriate, domain kiting, where a spammer or rogue registrar registers numbers of domains in bulk, using an automated robot, and then at the end of the "tasting" period returns them -- paying nothing. Moments after the domains expire, the criminal's robot goes and re-registers them all again. The phishing, malware and other criminal web sites always stay up online.
The issues unfold in these articles:
It's Time to End Domain Name Front Running - circleid.com
Fees Proposed To Embitter Domain Tasting - webpronews.com
Network Solutions Encourages ICANN to Adopt Transaction Fee to End Domain Tasting and Front Running - networksolutions.com
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