Have you ever performed an availability search for a domain name, only to find that it has already been taken? The domain name you were searching for may have fallen victim to a popular practice known as "domain tasting."

How does it work? The registrant reserves the name in the normal fashion, then releases it after a five day grace period, receiving a refund of the registration fee. The registrant then repeats this process over and over again, effectively preventing anyone else from registering the name without arranging for a transfer from the registrant.

The grace period was intended to allow someone who made a typographical or other mistake in the registration process a means to release the domain name and register the correct name. Domain tasting is an abuse of that process and has reached epidemic proportions. According to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), tens of millions of domain names are registered and released each month. At a special meeting last week, the ICANN Board of Directors passed a resolution encouraging a change in policy whereby fees would not be refunded upon the deletion of the domain names.

Google, Inc. is also trying to discourage domain tasting. The search engine leader recently announced that its AdSense program would exclude domain names under the control of tasters, thereby preventing the use of such names to generate advertising revenues. Hopefully, the actions taken by ICANN and Google will lead to the elimination of the distasteful practice of domain tasting.

To review a report of ICANN's special meeting, Kathy Ossian, Leader of our Information Technology Team, or call her direct at 313.496.7644