Yet Again, Vin DSL is slightly ahead of the curve

[Ron]

Good thing you didn't visit the domain too often, Vin.

Attendees [at an ICANN meeting] will also discuss a recent site-registration practice called "kiting" and "tasting" that is generating much controversy. It involves the wholesale purchase of expired domain names, and the subsequent cancellation of most of them during a five-day "grace" period allowed as part of the process. If cancelled before the five days are up, the registration fee is fully refunded. Those who engage in this practice only keep the domain names that attract enough traffic to justify their registration fee, and proceed to "park" those sites and load them with pay-per-click ads.

"There's a whole discussion going on in the community about whether there should be anything done about this," Twomey said. "There are people who think this isn't an appropriate behaviour. Others think this is just the market at work."

Those opposed to "kiting" are suggesting that ICANN impose some sort of fee whenever a registration is cancelled before the grace period is over, a move they feel will discourage the practice.

Source: http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index...S&newsID=16654

[Pawel Kowalski]

As much as I hate these sites the fact is if done right they can generate quite a bit of money.

[the_ancient]

ofcourse as per usual ICANN's reponse to a to a problem is just as bad or worse than the problems itself..

Sometimes I wonder if the Feds dont directly run ICANN, ICANN and the feds have the same mantra,

"Make everything as complex as possible why extorting, fining, and taxing the populace to death."

[Connie]

Yet Again, Vin DSL is slightly ahead of the curve

Don't contribute to Vins Big Head.

[Ron]

Yeah, I have a suggestion: Don't allow cancellations. Or better yet - allow cancellations but no refunds at all.

We're talking about what, a $0.25 ICANN fee anyway, right?

[lobos]

Yeah there should be a portion of the fee that is non-refundable, ie you should only get 75% refund or someting like that... with maybe a full refund only within 24 hours of registering the domain (i know I have put in the wrong domain name before)...

[Ron]

Thing is it's a quarter. Your registrar might not allow you to cancel. I don't think that eNom allows you to. If they did, right now you could get all of your money back. Under my suggestion that the ICANN fee be non-refundable, you'd have to forfeit 25 cents or maybe 50 cetns or whatever your registrar feels is "fair enough".

These people doing this are registrars themselves and they are registering thousand of names at a time and then cancelling them.

What's a quarter to you for your typo? Nothing. For them, that quarter really adds up when you multiply it by tens of thousands. Therefore that quarter could actually dissuade them from doing this, and filling the internet with (more) bogus spam sites.

Just my opinion.