Domain kiting threat feared for .uk

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 7 Aug 2006 at 15:09

UK Registry Nominet is hoping to suppress the appetite for 'domain-tasting' with new rules threatening to suspend access or terminate contracts with registrars that persist in the practice.

'Domain tasting', or 'domain kiting' involves the abuse of the systems of top-level domain Registries, which allow the deletion of domains registered in error because of a spelling mistake, for example.

The system gives registrars a grace period in which domains can be deleted without being charged. However, some unscrupulous registrars are using the system to register a domain, assess its pay-per-click ad revenue potential by serving an ad-filled page, and subsequently delete the domain if it is unlikely to generate enough.

'We have become aware with .com that high volumes of domains were being registered and then cancelled as a way to assess their pay-per-click potential,' Eleanor Bradley, Director of Operations at Nominet told us.

US registrar GoDaddy has highlighted the issue in the past. Go Daddy's CEO and founder Bob Parsons said that in April 2006, some 35m .com domains were registered, but only 2.3m ended up as permanent registrations. That means a large percentage of these were used in this ephemeral stage to serve ads until they were deleted.

The same number .com domains were registered in May, this time with 8 per cent becoming permanent. That's just 2.7m domains.

There's also evidence that the tactic is being used by cyber criminals. Mark Sunner, chief technology officer, at MessageLabs said in his company's Intelligence Report for May that. 'Disposable domains are ... becoming a larger problem via a tactic known as "domain kiting" in which cyber criminals acquire domains without paying for them and use them for illegal gains'.

Such a method could be used to collect personal data or host sites for targeted phishing campaigns, for example, which by their nature are only active for short periods of time. The five day grace period would easily be long enough for such purposes.

And for end-users, the practice means that huge numbers of domains are kept off the market, 'and never made available to someone who may want to use the name for a business website,' said Bradley. 'It's important people feel there is a level playing field for domain-name registration.'

She pointed out that Nominet had no problem with pay-per-click schemes in themselves and that genuine domain deleting will still be available. But Nominet will now limit the number of domains that members can delete to five per cent or five domains - whichever is the higher. And for those registrars that are found to be domain-kiting Nominet reserves the right to suspend access to its systems or terminate the contract altogether.

She said that the move was a pre-emptive strike to stop the issue becoming a problem as the first signs of 'domain kiting' were being seen for the .uk TLD.

'We need to protect our infrastructure,' said Bradley.