This refers to the article that was published on the 10th August that was that was written to promote discussion on Domain Tasting. Feel free to share your views on Domain Tasting and why it's good or bad.
Your blog is usually fairly sensible and well presented. However, your views on 'tasting' are either deliberately provocative (unworthy of you) or else come from some nonsensical view of right and wrong.
Tasting (and your views) are part of the extreme arrogance now seen in many of the public domain registrars that seem to believe that domains in their care are owned by them, to do as they will, without any ethical boundaries.
This includes keeping expired domains of intrinsic worth, rather than returning them to the 'pool', traffic-tasting and keeping the best, and/or even selling non-expired domains on flimsy pretexts, such as with the recent infamous GoDaddy incident.
The justification seems to be that the 'rules' allow it, so it must be 'great', as you say.
The fact that it is an elitist scam, unavailable to the vast majority seems to have eluded you. As does its totally unethical aspect. The notion of 'conflict of interest' hasn't yet been applied to the domain industry, as it has to 'professions'.
Until it does have a workable code of ethics, the registrar industry will wear the opprobrium associated with such unethical actions as 'tasting/kiting' etc.
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Tasting is for everyone not just registrars 2007/08/12 15:02
Hi Ida, First of all let me say that I'm honoured that you have been reading my blog. Many thanks for this encouragement.
To answer your questions on Domain Tasting: 1. Yes....what I wrote was a little provocative but I wanted to take the opposite view as every other article that's ever been written on Domain Tasting so that there could be some proper debate on the issue....therefore I was very pleased with your response! Therefore, I'm probably guilty as charged on this one but at least we are getting some interesting discussion. You will notice that I posted the opinion of the ICA so that it was aired publicly.
> Tasting (and your views) are part of the extreme arrogance now seen in many of the > public domain registrars that seem to believe that domains in their care are owned by them, to do as they will, without any ethical boundaries.
2. I'm not sure if you realise it but domain tasting is conducted by domainers not registrars, although I'm sure that registrars do it in their desire to find traffic domains.
> The fact that it is an elitist scam, unavailable to the vast majority seems to have > eluded you. As does its totally unethical aspect. The notion of 'conflict of > interest' hasn't yet been applied to the domain industry, as it has to 'professions'.
3. I think that you may be getting confused between a number of different issues. Domain Tasting is when a domain is kept for a few days to test for traffic, if there is no traffic then the domain is dropped. This ability is open for EVERYONE and is not just limited to a few. As far as conflict of interest is concerned, I presume that you mean in how it relates to registrars.....I believe that many registrars are HIGHLY conflicted and I have written about this is previous articles. The conflict has nothing to do with domain tasting but has a lot to do with how they are gaining information from domains registered through them and how they apply that information to the drops etc.
> Until it does have a workable code of ethics, the registrar industry will wear the opprobrium associated with such unethical actions as 'tasting/kiting' etc.
4. This is where we will diverge our opinions. Tasting and kiting are two entirely different things. Kiting is trying to avoid registering a domain and yet still maintaining control of that domain. This allows the registrant to avoid paying fees. It is VERY IMPORTANT to realise that Tasting and Kiting are facilitated by registrars and are open to EVERYONE. Although I do agree that registrars need a code of conduct, it should be centered less around tasting and more around other activities that place them in a direct conflict of interest with their customers.
Ida, I hope that I've answered your questions but keep up the dialogue as this is really healthy!
Domain Tasting for Masses…Start tasting for as less as 1 cent per domain and fight the menace...
Domain Tasting is the term coined to describe a process using which rich companies (in the guise of an ICANN accredited Domain Registrar) register millions of Domain Names , test them for advertising revenues (domain parking) at virtually no net cost to them.
Here is how a typical domain taster goes about his business
1. Domain Taster Becomes a Registrar 2. Deposits a financial security of a large amount with the Registries (Verisign for .com/.net, Afilias for .Info etc) 3. Starts Registering domains 4. Parks Those domains with Domain parking companies ( Sedo ,Skenzo, Imonetize ,Domain Sponsor etc .) 4. Monitors the revenue from each domain over the next 4 days 5. Retains all those domains that make some money. Delete the rest of domains 6. Gets refunds for All Deleted Domains 7. Go to Step 3 And the process continues.
All this is possible because of a concept called “Add Grace Period” which is part of the ICANN policy for domain registrars. Under this policy, any registrar will get full refund on any domain deleted within 5 days of its registration. This refund system was introduced as a means to allow Registrars to delete domains that were mistakenly registered or which were registered using Stolen Credit Cards.
But as outlined above big registrars with chests of money are misusing the system to make money at virtually no cost.
How does it harm others? Tasting harms the end consumer by making unavailable any domain that a customer may have utilized for a better reason. This forces the consumer to either buy a better domain at an auction or make do with a not so suitable domain for his use.
Tasting Harms everybody in the Domain Name business-Small registrars like us lose money because our customers can not get hold of any domain that they want to buy. Domain Resellers also lose for the same reason
Why does not ICANN stop domain tasting?
ICANN is discussing this problem and a solution is expected soon. Soon in ICANN’s calendar can mean anything between 1 year to 5 years.
What can be done to fight the Menace then?
We at MindGenies have come up with an idea that may sound maverick to some and sensible to others. Here is what we have come up with
1.We take Domain tasting to the masses. Instead of only registrars being able to taste domains, we would allow anybody with a willingness to invest $50 to start tasting domain names.
This has two benefits
Instead of automated scripts choosing the names to speculate on, we would have actual people coming up with the names to taste. This will give better results to our tasters as compared to the automated scripts run by the registrars. Our tasters can also earn money by parking the domains with Domain Sponsor
The bigger benefit would be the fact that with more people tasting domains, the menace would come in the public view and can then force ICANN to move faster on making Tasting Illegal. This is our ultimate aim
So What are you guys waiting for. Just Sign up with us at tasting.dotcomgenie.com , then signup with Domain Sponsor and start fighting back for your rights. Join the movement!
Post edited by: MindGenies, at: 2007/08/30 11:16
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hmm, I think you just proposed to fight domain tasting by getting more people involved in domain tasting. Rather than bashing the tasting process, why not just come outright and say we have another tasting solution available to endusers?
>>Tasting harms the end consumer by making unavailable any domain that a customer may have utilized for a better reason. This forces the consumer to either buy a better domain at an auction or make do with a not so suitable domain for his use.<<
This argument could be made about the domain industry in general. Do you truly believe parking and reselling helps out the endusers or that a typical company is able to get a suitable domain? A tasting registrar is going to sell that domain to the enduser the same as a reseller would have.
As an aside, I'm not for or against tasting although I am wholely against registrars becoming media holding companies. It's the nature of the industry we're in though, it's young and hard to regulate. Insider information & advantage is the way things are done, we all choose whether to sink or swim.
Post edited by: chris_c, at: 2007/10/21 22:59
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