Friday, Aug 14, 2009    Text size: 

The breed of spamming is known as "domain tasting," and it works like this: if a user registers a domain name but makes a typo while choosing it, ICANN used to let users withdraw that incorrect domain name with no penalty during a certain grace period.

Spammers and domain squatters abused this grace period by registering hundreds of domain names — usually ones that were one or two letters away from a popular domain — and putting up pages of sponsored links and banners. They would then profit from all of the typo-traffic these pages would attract, then withdraw the domain before they had to actually pay for them.

ICANN responded by charging users a penalty fee if they registered and withdrew too many domains. Users could withdraw as many as 10 percent of their registrations before activating the penalty. ICANN started out with a 20-cent penalty, but last month, they increased it to $6.75 for each infraction.

It worked.

According to ICANN, domain tasting has dropped to 16 percent of what it was before the penalties were added.