Why local restaurants should love domain tasting

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Why local restaurants should love domain tasting

Written on February 24, 2008 – 2:45 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Mike Mann is rethinking domain tasting. He’s the founder of BuyDomains.com and now works as a VC for WashingtonVC. Domain tasting, ~~or front running~~*, is the act of registering a domain name which you know somebody else is intending to register. Earlier, we reported that Network Solutions automatically registered domain names that people checked for its availability and that Google would make it harder for domain tasting companies to show up in the search results.

So Mann is rethinking a rather touchy subject. In an email he send to his personal mailing list, he said that ‘domain tasting is indiscriminate and buyers end up having their robots purchase other peoples’ clear trademarks, as well as a lot of lewdly suggestive names, or names that once resolved to questionable content. So it’s nothing I’d want my team to take part in’.

Yet that’s where the rethinking begins. And then Mann changes his mind:

In the past I thought nobody should do it. Today I think it should actually be done by others carefully for one simple reason: It’s good for the economy. People are typing in and clicking on legacy domain links for expired domains, and if they get a 404 error it’s a waste of time, energy and bandwidth - and nobody gets paid, however if it lands on a tasting speculators PPC page or monetizable site then someone is getting paid, and they can pay their employees, taxes, and tips at the local restaurant, etc. So domain tasting while lame in most respects is still good for the economy.

At first you might think: he’s right! But then, you hopefully realize that it’s just a justification thing for what his fellow domain traders do. Domain tasting isn’t good for economy, it hurts the ecomony. Why? For a number of reasons:

Imagine somebody wants to start a new site with a name he absolutely loves, then it turns out that this domain is registered by a domain tasting company. That probably scares him off, so domain tasting actually blocks creativity and entrepreneurship;
People lose their faith in the Internet, since the domain tasting pages are nothing more than a collection of sponsored links. Some even use pop-ups, automatic bookmark scripts or whatnot. When people don’t trust the web anymore, they will spend less time and less money online;
Those ‘monetizable sites’ clutter the web and make it harder for users to find what they’re actually looking for.

Please Mr. Mann, start rethinking your thinking on domain tasting again.

* Update: Eric Litman provided some definitions of domain tasting and front running in the comments.

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domain tasting, economy, front running, mike mann, Opinion

About the author: Ernst-Jan is a blogger and journalist, who previously worked in New York to cover news at the United Nations. Next to writing, he's also a singer in the band Christina Five.

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6 comments/trackbacks to “Why local restaurants should love domain tasting”

May 22, 2008: Domain-me.com: One scam or another, front running is gonna get ya’
[...] don’t exactly know what is, Eric Litman from WashingtonVC once gave a good definition in the comments section of this blog: Front Running: when a registrar purchases a name for themselves that someone either [...]

By Eric Litman on Feb 24, 2008 | Reply

Ernst-Jan - thanks for picking this up. You’re right that front running is a significant issue and is something very few people condone; however, domain tasting is very different from front running.

Here’s some quick clarification:

* Front Running: when a registrar purchases a name for themselves that someone either attempted to purchase or researched through that registrars web site.

Scenario: You want to buy imalittleairplane.com, so you take a visit to ReallySmallRegistrar.com to check out their prices. While on their site, you’re presented with a form that lets you check for domain name availability and you type in imalittleairplane.com. You see it’s available, decide you’ll come back later to register it then leave without a second thought. That evening you check again only to see imalittleairplane.com was registered shortly after you made your search. If ReallySmallRegistrar.com had used the fact that you searched for that name on their site to learn about imalittleairplane.com and register it before you had the chance to do so, that’s called Front Running.

* Domain Tasting: registering an expired domain name immediately after it becomes available for the purpose of evaluating traffic to the domain. That name can be returned to the available pool within five days without incurring any costs, or otherwise must be registered for at least one year.

* Kiting: registering a name, returning it within the 5 day grace period then immediately re-registering it to avoid payment. Some domain tasters also kite their names, but kiting can be done by anyone with access to registrar services, not just domain tasters. Domain tasting does not imply that one is kiting as well.

* Parking: monetization services that automatically generate a list of PPC ads on a given page based on a combination of the domain name itself and any incoming search keywords. Parking is entirely independent of both front running and tasting, although it may be used to monetize a name garnered through one of those two paths.

It’s important to note that front running is considered to be a pariah practice and is not something I’ve seen publicly endorsed anywhere. Many people suspect that it may happen, but evidence to support this claim is limited. Regardless, it’s not something with which any reputable registrar would ever want to be associated, and definitely not something WashingtonVC would ever condone from any of its portfolio of investments.

Kiting is the exploitation of a loophole which in my opinion should be closed.

-Eric
By Ruben Timmerman on Feb 25, 2008 | Reply

I’m not sure if all this domaintinkering is good or bad for the economy, but I think you mised the most important reason why it might be bad.

Getting a domain “back” from a frontrunner/taster/kiter/… takes time, effort and money. And gives you a nasty taste in your mouth. Those resources would better be used for starting your business.
By Scott Jones on Feb 25, 2008 | Reply

*Buys I’m a imalittleairplane.com*
By Chris on Feb 26, 2008 | Reply

Imagine fencing land across the horizon and holding it captive for decades to see which parcel brings in the most foot traffic, so it could be brought and let go off the rest.

Call it what you may, Domain Tasting is ILLEGAL regardless of the provisions made by ICANN today. I don’t have to wait for a year or even 5 years from now to have a law passed against it to know it is so.
By Shashi Bellamkonda on Jun 20, 2008 | Reply

I work at Network Solutions. We know how important this issue is for everyone, and not only did we listen, we’re acting. Though I have to admit the restaurant spin is kind of funny, and lightens up the issue a little.

Next week ICANN can vote an important issue to resolve to penalize domain name tasting and resolve front running for once and for all. Network Solutions is advocating that ICANN acts now, and we have published an official statement on our web site to that end.

Please excuse this URL, but given the seriousness of this issue, it was appropriate to provide a link: http://tinyurl.com/63yaox

Shashi