The Internet Corporation ICANN that is assigned to administer domains and numbers has formally announced a proposal to make "domain tasting" a thing of the past by changing the way it charges for domain names.

Domain tasting is method that exploits the "add grace period" — a five-day period following registration where the domain name can be deleted at no cost to the registrar — during this time they can see how profitable the domain is and decide whether to keep it or to return it at no charge.

The grace period was introduced so that registrars would not have to pay if the wrong domain name was registered due to a spelling or typing error during the process. The grace period was part of the .com, .net, .org, .info, .name, .pro and .biz registry contracts.

Unfortunately the five-day no pay period has often led to registered names being used as "parking pages" containing pay-per-click advertising relevant to the registered domain name or associated search terms, according to the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

A staggering 95% of all domains deleted (45,450,897) were accounted for by just 10 domain tasters.

Tasting also creates the potential for internet users to be harmed by spamming, malware and fraud, and for companies to lose web traffic and brand reputation, according to a GNSO report last year.

ICANN recently announced that it will now remove the 5 day grace period when purchasing domains and will charge the registrar straight away as soon as it is registered. This will eliminate the loophole which allows taster to make a profit for free.

The proposal put forward by ICANN will also put a stop to another form of domain-name exploitation, called "domain kiting", where domain names are registered for five days, then let loose and then registered again in a process which allows the registering party to avoid paying registration fees.

It is this practice which a new Google initiative — announced before ICANN's proposal to stop domain tasting — hopes to root out by blocking kiting domains from using its AdSense advertisements.

The proposal will involve a new system which can detect if a domain is constantly being taken up and released, and disallow Google advertisements from appearing on the domain.

"We have long discouraged domain kiting as a practice," the company said in a statement. "We believe that this policy will have a positive impact for users and domain purchasers across the web.