.ORG traffic testing for a charge?
As reported earlier PIR has submitted a proposal to ICANN that looks to charge a $0.05 fee for Traffic Testing (also known by some as Traffic Tasting)within the .ORG TLD if the deletions exceed 90% of the registrar’s regular registration volume.
(For an explanation what Traffic testing is, please read: How does traffic testing/tasting work?).
The registry for .ORG, PIR, claims a significant overhead due to the volume of the traffic testing. Depending on the setup of the registry, the traffic testing will of course take up database space (since registrations are billable transactions, they cannot just be deleted even when the charged amount is refunded at the time of the domain deletion) and some system resources during creation and deletion.
It would in general be very interesting and helpful to see a detailed breakdown of the registry operating cost that further explains how traffic testing affects the registries.
With the Direct Navigation market significantly increasing year over year, today’s domains that don’t pass mustard may become profitable in the future, and IMHO the registries may just be shooting future business in the foot with this strategy.
[via Peter Ejtel's ClickToHit]
[...] The .ORG registry will be charging an excess deletion fee as of May 26th, 2007 in order to stop domain tasting. The fee of $0.05 per domain will be charged for grace period deletions of more than 90% of the registered domains. PIR, the operator of the .ORG registry had proposed this change in August of 2006 – it was approved by ICANN. [...]