ICANN Ends Domain Tasting - The Backlash
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Slowly but surely many organizations and companies were growing increasingly frustrated with domain tasters, but very few did anything to punish them for their dishonest behavior. In 2008, however, Google decided to utilize their AdSense program to determine the domain names that were repeatedly being registered and then subsequently dropped during the grace period. According to Google, they intend to drop those particular domains from their AdSense program.
There is no word, however, on whether or not they will ban the users found guilty of domain tasting -- but if you know anything about Google, you know that they tend to penalize the bad guys when caught doing something blackhat or against their TOS.
After finding that the number of domains being registered and then dropped was only increasing each year, ICANN decided to take the matter in to their own hands in June of 2008. The organization decided to stop refunding the annual 20 cent fee for each registered, deleted domain that surpassed a certain limit -- as determined by the organization. Obviously, 20 cents per domain is hardly a severe punishment or penalty, and domain tasters knew that. Many continued to take advantage of the grace period, so ICANN decided to create and enforce much stricter and more expensive penalties.
The organization took drastic measures. Rather than just holding on to 20 cent refunds, ICANN actually began charging registrars $6.75, which is the current cost of a .org domain name. Not only that, but some registrars were charged higher for each additional dropped domain name that surpassed the limit set in place by ICANN during the AGP.
According to ICANN, this new strict policy of theirs has been incredibly successful. Since being implemented, the organization reports that it has resulted in a 99.7 percent decrease in domain deletions between June 2008 and April 2009.
Next: ICANN's Status Report >>
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