ICANN have announced an investigation into the controversial practice of domain tasting. The technique has been growing in popularity and now accounts for around 90% of domain registrations each month.

Domain tasters exploit a loophole in ICANN’s refund procedure where newly registered domains can be returned within a 5 day period. During this time adverts can be placed on the domain name to bring in revenue. While domain tasters sometimes choose to keep high performing names the buy-refund circle can be repeated indefinitely, so many domains never leave this state of limbo. As each domain taster can tie up many thousands of domains, very few released domains are now available to the public.

Some of the leading members of the domaining community have already come out against the practice. Bob Parsons, CEO of GoDaddy, refers to the practice as “Domain Kiting” and in his opinion it is a “growing abuse of the domain system” that “needs to be stopped”. Rick Schwartz has also described it as a “despicable practice” that can “ruin this industry”

Considering the response to Bob’s article back in May last year, it seems somewhat surprising that there are currently only a handful of replies to ICANN’s call for information. If you want to make your feelings about domain tasting or kiting known, then email ICANN on rfi-domaintasting@icann.org or submit through their online survey.