Entrepreneurs are taking advantage of a five-day grace period to sample millions of domain names

Entrepreneurs are taking advantage of a five-day grace period to sample millions of domain names
This Associated Press story compares buying clothing to domain names – with the practice of domain tasting akin to buying clothes on a credit card in that one has a period in which one can return both. The article notes “entrepreneurs have turned the return policy into a loophole for generating big bucks”. Further, “Experts believe spammers and scam artists are also starting to use the grace period as a source of free, disposable Web addresses.” The article also notes there were an “average tasting of 1.2 million names each day in December, compared with 7,200 two years earlier” using data from Name Intelligence while “Legitimate registrations made up 2 percent of the registrations at the end of 2006, down from about half in 2004.” Another point the article makes is of “A newer variant, sometimes called ‘kiting,’” that “involves the same company reregistering the same name every fourth or fifth day to hang onto it in perpetuity, without ever paying for it.”
http://iht.com/articles/2007/02/20/business/names.php