Scammers 'taste' domain names

[Mr.Domains]

I saw a story in the Seatle Post with the headline:

Marketers, scammers 'taste' domain names
Entrepreneurs have been taking advantage of a five-day grace period to sample millions of domain names, keeping the few that might generate advertising revenue and dropping the rest before paying.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/304175_websampling19.html?source=rss

I didn't even bother to read the article because I'm sure it's just the usual old rhetoric, but I thought to myself, what's the difference between that, and say, a headline reading:

Scammers 'test-drive' vehicles
Apparently unscrupulous motorists have been "test" driving vehicles, sometimes hundreds of makes and models, and then only keeping the one they decide to purchase!

... sorry, I don't see what the outrage is about? :smilewinkgrin:

 

[bensd]

More on that subject here:

http://www.dnforum.com/showthread.php?t=205780

 

[Mr.Domains]

Not quite the same thing. When a registrar is logging your searches and then registering those domains before you can, I think we'd all agree that was wrong. But I don't see the problem with "try before you buy", especially as that is what the grace period is for.

Plus I just thought the test-driving comparison was quite a good analogy...

 

[Theo]

The analogy is not accurate. If you were to take a car for a test drive and run errands with it, then it would match the "domain tasting" process. These companies actually make revenue from the domains for the grace period they mass-test them.

 

[barefoot]

The analogy is not accurate. If you were to take a car for a test drive and run errands with it, then it would match the "domain tasting" process. These companies actually make revenue from the domains for the grace period they mass-test them.

If you were to take a car for a test drive, drove people around in it for a fee as though you were a cabbie or limo driver, then returned the car to the dealer/owner, that might even better match the "domain tasting" process.

 

[GAMEFINEST]

testing domains before they register it fully ...is a scam?

 

[Theo]

If you were to take a car for a test drive, drove people around in it for a fee as though you were a cabbie or limo driver, then returned the car to the dealer/owner, that might even better match the "domain tasting" process.

Ideally you'd test drive a really expensive car (so-called "pu$$y magnet") and take your date out to dinner

 

[RegFee]

I saw a similar article on USA today. I actually read the entire thing though Two things that I never thought of before were:
1. When they talk about scammers, they aren't talking about the squatters. They are talking about the people who register 39lsd2js.net then send thousands of spam emails with the name, only to turn around and delete the name.
2. The deletion/re-availability process is instant, so the article said people will just keep on deleting and reregistering domains to keep from paying regfees. The only time I see this being worth the effort is if they are names that can be flipped easily for a couple of bucks. Since moniker charges a 25 cent fee, it would cost nearly 23 dollars to do this for a year.

 

[hugegrowth]

people might think it's morally or ethically wrong, but the fact is it's perfectly legal to do, kind of like a loophole. The grace period wasn't meant for domain tasting, but eventually people caught on to it and can use it to their advantage. If they are going to discourage it, registrars should have a $1 fee per name, or come up with some other way to discourage the practice.

 

[acesfull]

testing domains before they register it fully ...is a scam?

By definition, (scam: a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation) testing domains before they are registered can be considered a scam, since the purpose of the grace period is (if I am correct) offered to allow a refund for registrations that were made in error, and not because they don't pay off in traffic.

people might think it's morally or ethically wrong, but the fact is it's perfectly legal to do, kind of like a loophole. The grace period wasn't meant for domain tasting, but eventually people caught on to it and can use it to their advantage. If they are going to discourage it, registrars should have a $1 fee per name, or come up with some other way to discourage the practice.

A small fee of two cents to five cents, per domain, would discourage a LOT of domain tasting, as suggested at: http://www.circleid.com/posts/historical_analysis_domain_tasting/

Do the numbers - if you "taste" 10,000 to 100,000 (or more) domains per day, at 2 cents each - the dollars start to add up fast, and can easily outweigh the benefits from the small number of names worth keeping.

 

[GAMEFINEST]

those bastards