[registrars] Domain Tasting and Spying

[Ross Rader]

Jay Westerdal wrote:
> ICANN Registrars,
> We have seen a rise in complaints about domains getting registered a day
> after a person does a search but the person didn't buy the domain the same
> day. The person can only assume someone is spying on them when in fact some
> registants out there are picking up 1M domains to taste and they overlap
> with ones they looked at. I can only assume other Registrars are seeing the
> same complaint in a larger scale. We have even put up an FAQ up on it (
> http://support.domaintools.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kba
> rticleid=8 ). I think the registrars should brainstorm on this during NZ,
> curbing Domain Tasting would be a good thing for a majority of people. I am
> more convinced now that Domain Tasting if allowed should be done with a
> different thread type so people know the domain is still available.

I'd agree that we should talk further about the extent of the problem 
and possible solutions.

Possible solution: anything that has a nameserver associated with it 
becomes non-refundable. Registry retains discretion to fix one-time 
problems as they occur (i.e. like the time you ran 1000 names through 
the new code that you'd just promoted that pointed to the live 
environment and not the test environment).

-r