Hows that domain taste?The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (Cadna) has described Icann's solution to the problem of domain 'tasting' as a "partial success".
Domain name tasting is the process by which registrants obtain a domain name and track its traffic over the course of the five-day Add Grace Period.
If it does not yield enough traffic to make it immediately profitable, the registrant drops the domain name within five days in order to get a refund of the 20 cent registration fee.
The Icann board approved a measure in January to make the 20 cent registration fee non-refundable.
The organisation voted on a further measure in June that would allow registrars refunds only up to 10 per cent of net new registrations or 50 domain names, whichever is greater.
The combined impact is that registrars will only be accountable for the non-refundable 20 cents on deletes beyond the 10 per cent threshold.
However, Cadna believes that it is unlikely that the proposed solution will adequately address domain name tasting.
The results of a Cadna study suggest that a registrant that registers 100,000 domain names would keep 6,600 of them on average.
At $6.20 each, the cost of these domain names would be $40,920. Paired with the 20 cent Icann fee for each of the 93,400 domains that were not kept, the total cost of the domains would be $59,600.
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http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2220312/icann-tasting-solution-partialAnything to make it easier for domain squatters.
And in even worse news, get ready for dot.stupidICANN Proposes Domain Name Shake-Up30-06-08In Paris, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), has announced that its has approved a recommendation that could soon see a whole new range of names introduced to the online world’s addressing system.
Non-profit ICANN is the Internet’s main oversight agency for top level domains stated that, if passed, its new system could see the introduction of endless variations of names.
'The Board today accepted a recommendation from its global stakeholders that it is possible to implement many new names to the Internet, paving the way for an expansion of domain name choice and opportunity,' said Paul Twomey, President and Chief Executive Officer for ICANN.
The California and Belgium-based group stated that its Board must approve a final version of the implementation plan before the new process is launched, which could start as early as the second quarter of next year.
'The potential here is huge,” said Twomey.
“It represents a whole new way for people to express themselves on the net. It's a massive increase in the 'real estate' of the Internet.'
Presently, users have a limited range of 21 top-level domains to choose from such as .com, .org and .info. But the new proposals would allow applicants to self-select their domain name with choices that are the most appropriate for their customers or marketable. It is expected that applicants will apply for targeted community strings such as .travel for the travel industry and .cat for the Catalan community in Spain as well as generic strings like .brandname or .yournamehere. There are already interested consortiums wanting to establish city-based domain such as .nyc for New York City, .berlin and .paris.
'One of the most exciting prospect before us is that the expanding system is also being planned to support extensions in the languages of the world,' said Peter Dengate Thrush, Chairman for ICANN.
'This is going to be very important for the future of the Internet in Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Russia.”
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