[NA-Discuss] ICANN Board Recommends Action on Domain Tasting

[Louis Houle]

Good morning Nick,

ISOC Québec agrees with the suggested change on domain tasting. We would 
like to suggest one point that the announcement should address.
Would it be possible to simply cut the five-day period to a couple of 
hours ? It should be enough to discourage domain taster without loosing 
the goal of this policy, i.e. « ...so registrars could avoid costs if a 
domain name was mistyped or misspelled during the registration process.»
Maybe there is a good explanation but the anouncement does not elaborate 
on that point.

Regards

Louis Houle
Président
ISOC Québec

Nick Ashton-Hart a écrit :
> 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.
>
>