We have all done domain name searches only to find that the particular name is already taken. What you didn’t know is that domain name you searched probably has fallen victim to a popular practice now known as “domain tasting.”

How does this work? The registrant reserves the name in a normal fashion then proceeds to release it after the 5 day grace period giving them the right to a refund of the registration fee. The registrant repeats the process over and over again with the same domain name, effectively preventing anyone from registering the domain without arranging for the transfer from the registrant.

The grace period was intended to allow someone who may have made a typographical error or other mistake in the registration process a way to release the domain name and register the correct one.

Domain tasting is an abuse of that process and has reached now epidemic proportions. According to the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names) tens of millions of names are registered and released each month.

At a recent meeting in January of this year the ICANN Board of Directors passed a resolution encouraging a change in policy where by fees would not be refunded upon the deletion of the domain names.

Google has also piped in and stated they are trying to discourage domain tasting. They 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.

It is hoped that actions taken by ICANN and Google will lead to the elimination of this distasteful practice of domain tasting. You can review the report of ICANN’s special meeting in January 2008 here.