Domain Tasting Public Comment Closes Soon!!!

[simon johnson]

For those people (and registrars) that went crazy when the ICANN GNSO Council was considering the issue of "domain tasting".... now is your chance to tell them what you *REALLY* think.

This Friday (March 28) marks the final day where you get to have your say over the current "add grace period" (AGP) - where domains can be returned within five days without cost. See http://www.icann.org/public_comment/#domain-tasting

For those that don't know, the ICANN GNSO Council drafted a motion to prohibit any gTLD operator from offering a refund for "any domain name deleted during the AGP that exceeds 10% of its net new registrations in that month, or fifty domain names, whichever is greater."

So - Come on!! Focus all that energy that you have on the Snowe Bill, over here for a few minutes. Feel free to post some arguments against this motion, for the benefit of other domainers.

In my opinion, it appears that the whole thing is designed to:

1. Increase domain name registrations = More $$$ for ICANN

2. Increase profit for the larger registry operators (who could do the 10% taste return)

3. Shut out the small domain tasters and the vacuum cleaner registry operators.

4. Give the search engines more traffic (that would otherwise go to domainers).

5. Make it more difficult for domainers who sort through the domains (dregs) that fall through the drop process.

6. What about the guy who makes a mistake when he registers a name? Hmm... perhaps the registry operators can now charge a (higher) fee to refund it? Promote the 5 day refund and increase revenue!

So far, the media has focused on tasting TM domains (which it should separate out, to not cloud the issue). Tasting isn't the big evil boogy monster that people would have you believe.

Tell ICANN what you think - send your comments to: domain-tasting-motion@icann.org

Feel free to post any other ideas up on the thread.

[tekz999]

What I think is domain tasting should be free, without cost, and if a domainer wishes to register within/after 5 days, then price can be $8.95 or little bit higher.

Email sent as well.