Re: [ga] ICANN Board can intervene to stop domain tasting for 1 year

["Prophet Partners Inc." <Domains@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jeff,

I concur with your assessment. It would seem that the only way to truly protect 
the original NSI customer would be to require that they login to their account 
when conducting a query and then subsequently restrict registration of the 
reserved domain to that particular account.

Sincerely,
Ted
Prophet Partners Inc.
http://www.ProphetPartners.com
http://www.Premium-Domain-Names.com


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Neuman, Jeff 
  To: Nevett, Jonathon ; Dominik Filipp ; George Kirikos ; ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 3:35 PM
  Subject: RE: [ga] ICANN Board can intervene to stop domain tasting for 1 year


  Jon,

   

  How can you ensure that the same customer that performs the search is the one 
who is able to register it?  Seems like without that assurance, there is no 
protection.  For example, yesterday I did a search on a name from my computer.  
You then "reserved" it.  A friend of mine from a different location (and 
network) on his computer was able to register that name.

   

  Please help me understand how that benefited me who did the original search.  
Without that assurance, your mechanism does nothing more than ensure that 
someone cannot register that name at another registrar for the next 4 or 5 days.

   

  Tell me where my assumptions are wrong.  I would be happy to reconsider my 
opinion.

   

  Jeffrey J. Neuman, Esq. 
  Sr. Director, Law, Advanced Services  & 

  Business Development 

  NeuStar, Inc. 
  e-mail: Jeff.Neuman@xxxxxxxxxx 


------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  From: owner-ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
Nevett, Jonathon
  Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 2:43 PM
  To: Dominik Filipp; George Kirikos; ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Subject: RE: [ga] ICANN Board can intervene to stop domain tasting for 1 year

   

  Dominik, George and others:

   

  George is correct that if the tasting issue had been addressed, the Front 
Running phenomena would not have been so acute and we would not have felt 
compelled to protect our customers with this measure.  For 30 months, I have 
been advocating that ICANN should charge the Transaction Fee on tasted names 
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/registrars/msg02941.html.  We 
still support that approach to end tasting.

   

  I also want to mention that we have made some enhancements to our approach in 
response to many of the comments we have received.  We still are evaluating 
some others internally.  Here is what we have done so far:

   

  1.      All new reserved names will not resolve to any page at all.

  2.      We have addressed the concerns related to disclosure of zone file and 
DNS server information of the reserved names.  This information will no longer 
be available to anyone.

  3.      We have removed our customer protection measure from our WHOIS search 
page, so that no domains searched on this page will be reserved.  

  4.      We are providing additional customer notification of our protection 
measure on our home and search web pages.

   

  Thanks.

   

  Jon

  Network Solutions

   

  -----Original Message-----
  From: owner-ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
Dominik Filipp
  Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 12:16 PM
  To: George Kirikos; ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Cc: twomey@xxxxxxxxx; roberto@xxxxxxxxx
  Subject: RE: [ga] ICANN Board can intervene to stop domain tasting for 1 year

   

   

  George,

   

  well, agreed on many your counts here. Just one remark, we still can

  distinguish between the NSI practice and standard domain tasting in that

  NSI trades on the AGP to force potential registrants performing whois

  lookup on their site to buy a domain of interest at them, for the NSI

  standard price $35, though. Sure, some tasting registrars can misuse the

  NSI-looking page (pharming) to grab names but this is relatively

  unlikely unless you do not take care about the domain address of the

  'pharmer'. After all, this may happen to many other entities, such as

  banks, paypal, various private sensitive services, etc.

  But the important difference here is that NSI does not utilize PPC

  advertising, does not auction or otherwise speculate with grabbed names

  and is eventually willing to sell such grabbed domains for standard NSI

  prices. The problem is a new deceptive way of exploiting AGP, which is

  forcing the victims to buy such domains only at NSI. Something we have

  not seen before and something that may perhaps become similarly

  malicious in result as domain tasting itself. If not stopped, it is

  likely that other registrars will be encouraged to do the same as this

  practice currently gives NSI an advantage over other registrars. As a

  result, the registrants will become victims impelled to register domains

  at registrar at which they did the first (and last) whois lookup.

   

  Both practices have one thing in common, exploiting the AGP. Elimination

  of the AGP seems to be more and more the most effective solution to

  avoid both and all similar AGP-related practices. That is something we

  both can agree upon.

   

  Dominik