Today I was doing a little surfing around and came across Pool.com’s (C&R) Catch and Release. In other words Domain Tasting with a fancy name!
To me, this is a clear slap in the face to ICANN, with Pool stating, “look what we can do with this loophole”. Clearly they are offering a service to profit on and take full advantage of the AGP, as it was not intended to be! Another catchy slogan they use… Evaluate Domains for as low as 10 Cents! If your not happy, simply delete the domain with in 4 1/2 days and it only cost you 10 cents etc. https://www.pool.com/CNRLanding.aspx
From what I can tell, they use Rebel.com for this. This might be a way for them to try and keep there name clean or they are using technology from Rebel. You can read more about this in there FAQ’sand also clearly see how they talk about monetizing the domains in this 4.5 day period etc which they call “Domains in Evaluation”.
This is what the page says exactly.
“When a domain is added to your Domains in Evaluation list, you can evaluate its value by pointing it to the DNS of your current monetization service. To ensure you get the most out of Catch & Release (C&R), remember to specify your DNS on the C&R Credit page (if they are different than your default DNS servers specified in your Pool.com account preferences). C&R will automatically direct your domains to your monetization service for a 4.5 day period immediately after they are added to your Evaluation list. “
If domain tasting is taken away or not with the fee’s ICANN discussed in the last meeting, Pool deserves a slap on the wrist for clearly misusing the AGP IMO. I do not see Moniker.com or Godaddy.comor any other ICANN Accredited registrars clearly offering domain name tasting!
Jamie Zoch (www.DotWeekly.com)
