Domain tasting: If you build a web site, will they come? That's the premise behind domain tasting, the practice of registering a domain name for a few days--well within the domain registrar's grace period--putting ads on the site, and seeing whether customers visit and click. If there isn't much traffic to the URL, the domain is canceled.
The practice itself, though possibly unethical (akin to returning a sweater after wearing it "just once!"), isn't the problem. The problem, according to an article in Information Week cited by the New York Times, is when the "tasted" URL is a close match to a well-known trademark. Retailers Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman last week sued three domain registrars for allowing the registration of domains that were "confusingly similar" to the stores' names. Microsoft has sued a fourth registrar, Maltuzi Holdings, which has since shut down its own web site.
Domain tasting is also known as domain swiping or typo-squatting.
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