Google’s end to domain tasting - what a load of crap!

Wow. Have the last few days been sublime or what? Ever since Jay Westervald posted Google to kill Domain Tasting on his DomainTools blog we have seen an amazing surge of posts and news articles depicting Google as the savior of the world.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually like Google. The tools and innovations they present us with on a daily basis make life on the web a lot easier. Yes, they are in it for the buck and I don’t buy their “Don’t be evil” motto but hey, they are still doing a lot of good for the general web user.

I am not one to buy into the whole “Let’s jump on the I hate Google or Microsoft or whatever” bandwagon, but seriously, Google’s latest move sees them as saviors of the domain world?

What a lot of crap!!!

Lets take this back to January 24th, 2008. Jay Westervald posts Google to kill Domain Tasting on his DomainTools blog. Ok, following that if we Google the terms “google domain kiting” or “google domain tasting” here are some of the topics we come up with:

Google to Squelch Domain Kiting
Google Takes Aim At Domain Tasting Profiteers
Google takes on domain kiting
Google takes a stand against domain tasters
Google May Knee Cap Domain Tasting
Can Google Solve The Domain Tasting Problem?

Do you see the pattern here? Google the savior. Google the hero. Google the domain tasting and domain kiting terminator.

Google, the company whose partners rake in over 3 million USD from tasting/kiting practices per month decided to play good and call it a day on the shady practice?

What’s wrong with that? - you might say. Nothing if only it wasn’t a move by Google done one day following the ICANN board meeting which actually put an end to domain tasting/kiting practices.

From the ICANN board meeting preliminary report:

Whereas, the current version of all gTLD registry contracts provides for a
five-calendar-day Add Grace period (AGP) following the initial registration
of a domain during which a domain may be deleted and the sponsoring
Registrar will be credited for the amount of the registration fee (see,
e.g., http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/appendix-07-01mar06.htm);

THEREFORE, the Board resolves (2008.01.04) to encourage ICANN’s budgetary process to include fees for all domains added, including domains added during the AGP, and encourages community discussion involved in developing the ICANN budget, subject to both Board approval and registrar approval of this fee.

A voice vote was taken of all Board Members present and the motion was approved by a vote of 13-0.

So, I am sorry to tell you that Google, as great a company as they are, did not actually play the “do-good” part that everyone wants us to believe. They weren’t exercising their motto “Do no evil”. They were simply acting upon an ICANN decision which was in actual fact going to render them as one of the parties strongly benefiting from domain tasting and was going to be a negative PR hit of massive proportions.

They were going to be depicted as the bad guy!

Instead, Jay Westervald, knowingly or unknowingly, kicked of the heroic Google news stampedo and handed Google one of it’s best positive PR shots in recent times.

“Google, you are my hero!” - What a load of crap!

( Thanks to Sahar Sarid for pointing out the timeline of the actual events. )