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Domain Tasting Debate
June 25th, 2007 by 
Jay Westerdal
There was an panel of speakers talking about Domain Tasting yesterday. The ICANN ALAC is debating whether to ask for a PDP (Policy Development Process) paper. The first step in the ICANN process to solve a problem is defining the issue. The ALAC is trying to figure out all the issues that surround domain tasting before it calls for the PDP process. Everyone on the stage showed us their power point slides and talked about how domain tasting affected them. David Maher of PIR talked about how they solved the problem already. PIR raised the keep ratio in .ORG to higher than 90% and made it cost 5 cents to throw a domain back if the ratio was lower then that. I congratulate PIR for figuring out how to solve the problem, but is it a problem? According to Verisign it is not an operational problem for them and they make money doing it. So from Verisign’s perspective Domain Tasting is fine.
It is clear that the losers in Domain Tasting are the trademark owners that have their domain names typo-ed against. John Kane of eNom pointed out that it is fine to take something like boating and register 100 domain names with boating in the title and look for boating domains that would bring traffic but that registering 100 domain names that look like VerizonWireless.com would be illegal.
From a registrar perspective, it is a huge liability to not have a refund period. Perhaps a hacker registers garbage at your registrar with a stolen credit card and you only catch it the next day. The 5 day period can be used to delete the domain names and get a full refund for the hack.
Personally I think Domain Tasting should be stopped. I see collateral damage and lawsuits everywhere. I like PIR’s solution rather then just closing the grace period. The systematic harvesting of typos is the worse offense. I have no problem with tasting of generic stings but typos that are not in the dictionary are a loaded gun of problems. I would advise domain tasters to use a dictionary when hunting for traffic.
Marilyn Cade did the most injustice to the whole debate. Her presentation was about Unethical Domain Parking and not Domain Tasting. She was basically saying that parking pages are the sickness of the Internet. Here is a quote from Marilyn:
“This, in fact, is the first meeting at which we have discussed a key aspect of Monetization, and that is the harmful aspect, The Dark Side, when it is not just a monetization scheme, but it is a scheme of monetization that is involving the abusive registration and exploitation of the rights of others.
I by no means mean to imply that the secondary market is all bad. But what I’m here today to do is show you some examples of experiences that people are doing.
Put pans under the Drips, eventually I’m going to see a significant increased cost in maintenance and repairs, but more that that, ugly molds are going to grow in the attic and in the walls. They won’t be discernible initially, but eventually there will be major structural problems.“
She then showed slides of unethical parking pages. While some of what she showed was unethical, she was confusing the issues and taking people off the debate over Domain Tasting. To the non technical people in the room she made a good argument. I think that is exactly why what she did was so dangerous, she was giving examples of bad things that happen and then tried to tie that in to Domain Tasting. She needs to confine her attacks to be more targeted or she will accomplish nothing.
I am not supporting unethical Domain Tasting or Abusive Registrations. In fact I am very against them. I do however support the rights of people to Park their domain names. So Marilyn, please don’t confuse the audience. Parking is a legitimate and ethical business and you should figure that out really quick. An entire industry hates you when you try to pull us into something else which is unrelated. There are always people that use tools in the wrong way but please don’t attack everyone that uses those tools. There are people parking domain names ethically. When some of them do it in an unethical way, that does not make domain parking unethical in general. That only makes those people unethical.
Marilyn, Please give clear examples of Domain Tasting abuse. Let’s solve that problem. But don’t sling mud about other issues and expect us to rally behind you on a completely different issue. This is not capital hill and you can’t confuse the audience into doing something. We are too smart for that.
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Posted in Domain Parking, Domain Tasting, ICANN |
June 25th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Looking at Marilyn Cade’s background, it appears she has more of a intellectual outlook on business. Rather than practical experience with business.
I’m glad that others were pointing out, there is a difference between domain tasting of a typo of Boating.com (maybe, baoting.com). And, not confusing it with a typo of Verizon.com (maybe, Verizom.com)
Cade’s background information - 2005
http://nomcom.icann.org/bios-2005.htm
Please keep us posted on other meetings at Icann.
June 25th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Nice picture of Jothan.
How come you are always smiling?
June 25th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
I read Marilyn’s quote twice and hope she’s simply railing against the deliberate cybersquatting aspects of domain name monetization relating to tasting. If Marilyn owned Marilyn.com and ran a small homepage there complete with Adsense ads, and I created a chain of coffee shops called ‘Marilyn’, and I then came after Marilyn for “exploiting my rights” through her unfair registration and “monetization” of Marilyn.com, you can bet she wouldn’t be too happy about it. Scenarios like that are constant realities of the domain business. They get solved on a case by case basis through the courts and UDRP. In the example above I would likely be over-reaching and Marilyn would be entitled to her generic registration.
I too am concerned that many of the folks on the ALAC are stuck in 1994. The reality is people are making money on the Internet. I recently asked somebody with disdain for generic domain-monetization what a ‘parking page’ was and he replied: “I don’t know how to explain it but I know one when I see it”. After further prodding this individual conceded he was jealous that another party had beaten him to his registration of choice. Call them websites, blogs, parking pages, micro-portals.. call them whatever you wish: Domain names, coupled with related advertising and content are just not going away. There are not enough good names to go around and if people want a good .com com name they are going to have to *gasp* open their wallet and “buy” one in the secondary market, just like you or I do. These are the foundational realities of the Internet (and of life).
PIR (.org registry) was able to stop tasting because it wanted to. Verisign could do exactly the same thing in .com but it does not want to.. As long as Verisign has the rights to the .com namespace, and it wants to permit tasting, no amount of meetings in Puerto Rico, Lisbon, or Tierra Del Fuego are going to stop the practice; regardless how many of us think it’s time for things to change.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Sorry, there is no legitimate rationale for domain tasting. Not one. Forget about typo squatters and trademark infringers, it goes way beyond this. For anyone to support any form of tasting shows the lack of best business practices and lack of sophistication that still pervade the domain industry. I can assure that this practice would never fly in any other industry. You can’t buy a share of, say, APPL, and then turn it back in 4 days and 23 hours later, saying, “oh dear, I really didn’t want that share”, and then turn around and buy it again for the original price, then drop it again, and then buy it again, etc.
Yes, the original idea was to allow people who made a typographic mistake, recognize their mistake, and ask for a refund.
But this is not the case in tasting and everybody knows it. ICANN knows it, Verisign knows it, the registrant and the colluding registrar know it. How else would the same registrant use the same registrar over and over again? The registrar (and registrant), and only these two parties, know when the name is going to drop. The registrar is just using his deposit in a series of credits and debits. Meanwhile, the tasted name is immediately parked on a PPC site making money, and as the drop and “renew” happens immediately, the parked page isn’t even taken down.
I know from personal experience. There is a name I could really use in my portfolio, I have a legitimate need for it. Yet, I have been watching this name being reg’d, dropped, re-reg’d, dropped every 4 days and 20-23 hours for 3 months now. Same registrant and same registrar every time. As the registrar’s account is being debited and credited constantly, the domain is never paid for. Meanwhile this name is on a PPC page earning money.
In case you folks aren’t aware of civil law and commercial codes (and it doesn’t seem like you are) this is collusion to defraud, heck it’s outright fraud, and everyone is guilty. When I contacted ICANN, the response was, “well this is an isolated incident.” Nonsense. The whole industry knows this is happening. Moreover, when I looked up the IP of the offending server on this very site, Domain Tools, you guys have flagged it for tasting. Hello?
Make it so when a genuine mistake in a registration is discovered, the registrant and registrar fill in a ton of paperwork, and wait 3 months for the registrar’s account to be credited. Tasting will disappear immediately. But, then ICANN will have to debate this for a year.
Perhaps a class action suit would wake everyone up?
UPDATE BY JAY: Steve, Jon’s argument for tasting is that if you registered generic names and taste them, if they do not infringe on anyone there should be no problem with this. The following names are available but generate no or little traffic. No one owns them or should care if someone registers them.
Boat Argument:
ReallyFastSpeedBoat.com
SeattleSpeedBoat.com
CaliforniaSpeedBoat.com
BellevueSpeedBoat.com
KirklandSpeedBoat.com
SanFransiscoSpeedBoat.com
LosAngelosSpeedBoat.com
NewYorkSpeedBoat.com
I personally think if the domain has a typo in it, then the tasting should not be allowed but I can see Jon’s argument makes sense with Generic domains. He is not harming anyone nor is he hurting anyone. Verisign allows tasting and they are not telling people to stop. If a taster registers domains that don’t spell check then I could argue they are trying to find typos of other sites.
If someone registers Domaintgools.com for example via tasting it would be hard for anyone to argue that that was a legitimate use of tasting. If people register typos they deserve to get burnt. So I can argue that generic tasting is a valid reason.
If you want to debate about the five day grace period, I can think of even more reasons to allow that.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Addendum:
Am I a typo squatter and trademark infringer?
You bet I am. I have been forced to reg about 100 typo names and 40 g and ccTLD’s, of MY OWN Trademarked brand, to protect myself from those out there who think tasting baoting.com is a legitimate practice. Gimme a break!
July 21st, 2007 at 8:25 am
OK, Jay. Let’s debate.
Let’s say I have a business called San Francisco Speed Boating. I have a legitimate reason to acquire the name. OK, I’m stupid because I didn’t reg the name before choosing my company name, but can we allow the premise to continue for argument’s sake? I can’t get the name because, it is being dropped and re-regged every four days by a taster and colluding Registrar. It is not being paid for (even I passed Accounting 101), yet the taster is making money.
Your point that Verisign allows it is laughable. That does not make it ethical or correct. And now the fees are being increased to $6.42 per for us legitimate users, and $0.00 for tasters. Search your business-soul, Jay, do you really think this is fair? Have you ever been on the receiving end, really needing a name to expand your legitimate business and finding it being hijacked by a taster? Have you ever seen a taster announcing themselves publicly for what they are doing? No, they lurk in dark waters, because they know that they are over the line.
There is only one ethical reason for the five-day grace period, and that is the spirit in which it was written and established, to correct a typographic error (N.B., I do not use the term typo) on the part of a domain purchaser [emphasis added]. Not control a name for an indefinite amount of time, never paying for it, and blocking someone with a legitimate use.
How can you justify using this provision in the ICANN T&C when the same name–correctly spelled and spelled the same way each time–is regged and dropped over and over again?
Hey, dropping and regging and dropping and regging takes computer/server overhead and man hours. You can’t say this is a costless operation. So who is paying for this? The legitimate purchaser every time they pay for, and keep, a name.
I’m sorry, Jay, I have tons of respect for you and what you’ve done at NI. But the loophole exploited for tasting has to be closed sooner or later. And again I reiterate, this would never be tolerated in a sophisticated marketplace like the financial markets, shares, bonds, real estate, insurance, etc. I’ll grant you that the “domaining” marketplace is really less than a decade old, but the sooner it grows up and matures, the better and more perfect the market will be for legitimate business people. And the tasters will move on to their next grift. I for one will be standing at the door saying “good riddance.”
Over to you,
Steve
UPDATE BY JAY:
Steve,
I am fine with a debate. My position as I stated above is:
So here is what I will debate. There is a legitimate use for the 5 day grace period. So it is hard to shut down Domain Tasting without affecting those people that legitimately use the 5 day grace period. Here are a few legitimate non Domain Tasting reasons: Refunds, Typos, Charge-backs, Criminal Theft of a Credit Card, Registrar Testing of the EPP system, and restoring a credit balance after a system failure mistakenly registers domains.
Domain Tasting by itself is not bad. It is sort of like calling a gun, “Bad”. Domain Tasting is just a tool. How you use the tool should be taken into account.
Let’s say you want to buy a domain name that someone is Tasting, This is what you argued. Well in this case, you have just as much access to buy the domain when they delete it as everyone else. Equal access to the Registry is a primary principal that Verisign operates by. Case almost closed right there.
But you might argue, “Lack of Technology to register the domain in the 5 seconds when it is available”. How about the solution to put the domain in a 5 day delete phase. So everyone knows the second it comes back on the market.
If you don’t have the technology that will allow you to register the domain between someone tasting it and when it is available again then you need better technology. This is a free market and if there is demand for this technology, then anyone is free to create it. But you can’t complain because someone built a better mouse trap. Build a better mouse trap yourself or hire someone in the market that can.
July 26th, 2007 at 4:10 am
And, 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs looked up in the sky and saw this huge fiery ball speeding towards earth…”Gee, what’s that?”, they said…. kabaaam!
Jay, you can’t agree to a debate, then unilaterally choose your own points and spin them. The issue is tasting. The issue is a secret collusion between a registrant and a registrar, who alone know when they will drop and renew a domain to the exclusion of all others. You’re a smart guy, so have you never heard of insider trading? It’s illegal, you know. Or, do you wish to infer that insider trading is legitimate in the domain industry so long as you are on the winning side, and most importantly, you don’t get caught?
Then you make the condescending remark that in order to “beat” the tasters, I have to go out and invest in technology to build a better mousetrap? Effectively a bigger gun that is “badder” than theirs? Come on, man, this is how wars start, and nobody wins in war. And, I’m a legitimate end user, so I’m not going to engage in out-cheating the cheaters. That’s a losers game played only by bottom-feeding losers who can’t cut it in the real world of commerce.
So let’s once again, if you don’t mind, come back down to first principles. The spirit of the rule is, as you have rightly said, to make corrections in the system for legitimate mistakes and I would imagine to comply with Regulation Z [or whatever Reg Z has evolved into these days] in the commercial code. It is not, and never was, meant to be serially exploited to have and enjoy a good or service without paying for it, to the exclusion of someone with a legitimate use.
Please, Jay, let me know if you ever open a retail store and your specialty is one-of-a-kind products. And you’ll kindly give me a five-day trial of the product, and it happens to be the only one in your inventory and you can’t get any more of that item. I’ll come in, and not pay for the product. Then I’ll come back in 4 days, 23 hours and 53 seconds and return it, saying “Naw, I don’t want it.” Then a few seconds later I’ll say, “Hey, I’ve changed my mind, I do want it, but I’m gonna take it out for another 5-day approval. Hey dude, it’s YOUR rule!” And I keep doing this for an indefinite period of time. I’m enjoying the product, consuming it, maybe even making money off of it. And, get this, I don’t have to pay for it! How cool is that? I’ll tell my inside friends, “Oh, man, go buy your widget at Jay’s store, you can use it and never pay for it!” Meanwhile, your store is stripped of inventory, and you’ve got nothing in your cash register.
Who’s the sucker?
Look up in the sky, Jay. Hey, there’s another fire ball coming….
That’s it. End of story.
Over to you, amigo.