King of Domain Tasting — NameKing Still
Registrar NameKing still biggest domain taster, but numbers declining.
Domain registrar NameKing.com is still the king of domain tasting.
NameKing, a subsidiary of Oversee.net, continues to drop nearly 1 million .com domains during the add grace period each month. As I predicted, ICANN’s budget measure to stem domain tasting curtailed the practice but did not eliminate it.
The graph below shows the number of .com domains NameKing dropped during the add grace period each month from April to September 2008 (the last month for which data is right now available from ICANN). As you can see, NameKing’s domain tasting has been reduced from regarding 2.5 million .com domains a month to 1 million domains. As stated by RegistrarStats, the firm only has 737,197 active domain registrations.
In 2007 NameKing briefly suspended domain tasting following one of its clients was sued by Microsoft for trademark infringement and cybersquatting.
By April 2009, NameKing’s tasting appetite will be seriously crimped by a fresh ICANN policy that will not allow registrars to receive refunds for more than 10% of domains returned during the add grace period.
But the fresh policy won’t be the end of domain tasting. There are a number of ways firms can still make tasting profitable under the fresh policy, especially for registrars that have retail clients. Demand Media’s eNom, right now a big domain taster, may be able to continue its practice. In September, eNom’s dozens of registrars dropped over 100,000 .com domains during the add grace period, as stated by VeriSign notes submitted to ICANN. But the firm registered regarding 150,000 fresh .coms during that period, meaning it can return up to 15,000 domains without penalty. It will have to reduce its domain tasting operations but not eliminate them.
