I just read the thread. The amount of misinformation, pure speculation and outright conspiracy theory is laughable.

Take you "tens of thousands" of queries and make that "hundreds of thousands," even at small registrars - and millions at larger ones.

Giving it more thought, here's my theory:

The guy wanted a domain that was dropping. He put in a backorder at GoDaddy, and they didn't get it. My guess is that one of the "tasting" registrars did. They held it for 4 days, determined that it had no real traffic, and released it. Like clockwork, when it was released, it became immediately available.

It's amazing how everything looks like a conspiracy when you don't know how it works.

Thanks, Chris. That's helpful.

Bret

Chris is right

Yesterday alone there were 1,740,692 .com "registrations"
and a corresponding 1,513,134 com deletions from previous tastings.

Prior to these free lunches starting last year there were typically 30,000 .com registrations a day.

are those "tasting registrars" working within the icannn rules? It doesn't seem right that they can register these names for free, watch for traffic and dump the non performers.

On a side and somewhat related note: I do think it would be great if the registry charged on a per day basis. so if you wanted to register a name for a week, it'd cost you 12 cents or whatever. Make this available to everyone and it will help level the playing field.

Yes, they are playing "by the rules."

Yes, the rules permit domain tasting.

However, the particular rule that permits a registrar to cancel a registration within five days and get all his money back was added to an amendment to the registry agreements by an ICANN staffer without any debate or consideration of its effects. (It was when they added the redemption period stuff.)

This effect was utterly predictable by anyone who's been around long enough to remember the pre-Verisign NSI rules where you registered a domain, they sent you a bill, and you had several weeks to pay it. Speculators then did the same thing, registered vast numbers of domains, and only paid for the minority that seemed valuable. The current pay when you register system was set up specifically to fix that problem, and it beggars belief that nobody at ICANN remembered that.