Science Q & A
Q. What is "domain tasting"?
Rachael Federico
Issue date: 2/7/08 Section: Sci/Tech
A. First of all, an internet domain is the "google" part of www.google.com. That is just the first one that comes to mind, but there are millions of them. Of course, individuals can purchase their own domain name. For example, Union College purchased union.edu for their website. Individuals can also purchase a domain name from a registrar (companies such as Network Solutions). The cost of a domain name runs between three and twenty-five dollars for a year, depending on who the domain name is purchased from and what top-level domain (TLD) the person would like to use (.com, .edu, .org, .TV, etc.). The Internet Corporation for Assigned Naming and Numbers (ICANN) has the ultimate authority over the names and the operation of the domain name system (DNS). DNS is the system that allows a user to use "friendly names" to access websites (such as www.google.com) as opposed to their numerical IP addresses…which would be far more difficult to remember. If you do not appreciate these "friendly names," try to remember 64.233.161.104:80 which is the IP address and "port" for the above example, at this point in time.
Domain tasting is not very nice-in fact, it is quite distasteful. For the most part, it is a form of fraud. The best way to understand the practice is comparing it to retail. Imagine someone purchasing a cell phone, waiting 29 days out of the 30 days allotted in the return policy, and then returning the cell phone, all the while keeping the phone on eBay for a price much higher than was originally paid. In other words, the person is basically attempting to make a profit while buying and returning the same item so he/she never actually has to pay for the item in the long run. Some unsavory characters like to do the same thing with domain names. Going back to the example above, someone has purchased www.goooogle.com (using four "o"s) and posted a website containing nothing more than ads. The hope is that people will mistype the address, exposing themselves to a barrage of popup and pay-per-click ads, creating a tidy profit for the "taster." I accidentally stumbled upon one of these sites the other day when I misspelled the youtube website as utube. There are also a lot of scam credit report websites that profit from people who are looking for their legitimate counterparts. I don't need to tell you how dangerous it could be if you let your personal financial information fall into the wrong hands.
Domain tasting is not very nice-in fact, it is quite distasteful. For the most part, it is a form of fraud. The best way to understand the practice is comparing it to retail. Imagine someone purchasing a cell phone, waiting 29 days out of the 30 days allotted in the return policy, and then returning the cell phone, all the while keeping the phone on eBay for a price much higher than was originally paid. In other words, the person is basically attempting to make a profit while buying and returning the same item so he/she never actually has to pay for the item in the long run. Some unsavory characters like to do the same thing with domain names. Going back to the example above, someone has purchased www.goooogle.com (using four "o"s) and posted a website containing nothing more than ads. The hope is that people will mistype the address, exposing themselves to a barrage of popup and pay-per-click ads, creating a tidy profit for the "taster." I accidentally stumbled upon one of these sites the other day when I misspelled the youtube website as utube. There are also a lot of scam credit report websites that profit from people who are looking for their legitimate counterparts. I don't need to tell you how dangerous it could be if you let your personal financial information fall into the wrong hands.
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