[announce] ICANN Board Recommends Action on Domain Tasting

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http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-29jan08.htm
ICANN Board Recommends Action on Domain Tasting

Suggested fee change would effectively eliminate tasting

29 January 2008

MARINA DEL REY, Calif.: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and 
Numbers is looking to effectively end domain tasting with a proposal to 
start charging the annual ICANN fee on registrar domain registrations.

Domain tasting is the use of the Add Grace Period to test the 
profitability of a domain name registration. The AGP is a five-day 
period following the initial registration of a domain name when the 
registration may be deleted and a credit can be issued to a registrar.

"Domain tasting has been an issue for the Internet community and ICANN 
is offering this proposal as a way to stop tasting," said Dr Paul 
Twomey, ICANN's President and CEO. "Charging the ICANN fee as soon as a 
domain name is registered would close the loophole used by tasters to 
test a domain name's profitability for free."

AGP was originally introduced by registries so registrars could avoid 
costs if a domain name was mistyped or misspelled during the 
registration process. It is part of the .com, .net, .org, .info, .name, 
.pro, and .biz registry contracts.

Tasting has been a serious challenge for the Internet community and has 
grown exponentially since 2004. In January 2007 the top 10 domain 
tasters accounted for 95% of all deleted .com and .net domain names - or 
45,450,897 domain names out of 47,824,131 total deletes.

The proposal will be part of the ICANN budget process for the fiscal 
year starting 1 July 2008. The early draft version of that budget will 
be released for and discussed at ICANN's New Delhi meeting later this 
month. After public discussions of this proposal and other budget 
issues, the proposed budget will be released for addition discussions by 
17 May 2008 and be voted on at the board meeting to be held during the 
ICANN meeting in Paris in June. ICANN accredited registrars representing 
two-thirds of fees collected will be asked to approve the proposal.

"This idea came from the ICANN community and we think it is a viable 
solution the Internet community has been seeking," Dr Twomey added.
--
Glen de Saint Géry
GNSO Secretariat - ICANN
gnso.secretariat[at]gnso.icann.org
http://gnso.icann.org