ICANN Domain Tasting Deadline

Stephane has an interesting post on the possible end of domain tasting.

While the debate around domain tasting has been going on for quite some time ICANN can be a very slow moving beast. In some ways it moves far too slow, but when you consider the range of different opinions that have to be taken into consideration for such a significant policy change to come into effect it’s a different story.

Domain tasting grew out of a loophole. Like so many things involving the internet and governance policies, the goalposts move over time. A big issue 10 years ago may have vanished completely, but a whole new range of issues will have taken its place, so nobody could expect policy makers to “second guess” every change.

The AGP (Add Grace Period) is an important function for any registrar. It allows a registrar to delete a domain that is less than 5 days old.
Why was this needed? Is it still needed?

There are a lot of very valid reasons why a registrar might need to delete a domain shortly after its creation.
Obvious reasons would include things like credit card fraud and purely abusive registrations (eg. spammers / phishers registering domains for purely abusive usage).

Of course the entire debacle was sparked off when some registrars realised that they could use the AGP in way that ICANN and the registries had never intended.

A lot has been written about how tasting was abused, so there’s no point repeating it. Suffice to say that there are some very valid reasons for blocking abuse, but whether the proposed change that is on the table will negatively impact registrars or not is another question.

Hopefully the change will lead to an improved experience for end users.