An end to domain tasting
ICANN, the global authority on domain names, is finally responding to years of domain abuse by putting an end to "domain tasting".
Years ago, someone at ICANN introduced a scheme whereby if someone registered a domain name and realised they'd made a typo in the registration, that they could cancel their registration within five days and not be billed.
It had good intentions, but it is a loophole which has been exploited mercilessly by spamming organisations and other fraudsters. If an existing domain expires then it is immediately registered by people who want to see if they can grab a valuable asset and possibly ransom it back to the original owners. They also put it onto a "portal" site, (usually a pornography site littered with pay per click adverts) so they can see what traffic they get to it and whether or not it is worth keeping. And within the five day grace period, their systems either work ou that the domain name is profitable or they cancel them automatically at no cost to the scammer.
Another common use of these domain names is to use them as the target address within spam runs. Almost every spam you get asks you to click on a link and go visit a website. These website names quickly end up on blacklists but nowadays the spammers have an endless supply of domain names that they can use for five days and then abandon at no cost to themselves. If you do happen to pick up a domain name previously used by a spammer then you may find you have also inherited a bad reputation and a blacklist record.
According to ICANN, last year saw 47 million domain names registered and returned within the five day period, and of those 47 million, over 45 million of them were registered by just 10 organisations. That's a lot of work done by ICANN, with no revenue. For the scammers, even if they only make a few pence per domain name in click through fees, that's still a hefty income.
Finally ICANN has said enough is enough and is going to end the five day grace period. The charges it makes to the registrars for a registration are pretty small, but even a small charge is enough to radically change the economics for scammers registering millions of taster domains each month.
18th February 2008
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.