Domain Tasting (AGP)
A largely defunct tactic of registering domains then cancelling within the free add-grace period.
- glossary
Domain tasting was the practice of registering large batches of domains and then cancelling them within the add grace period (AGP) — a few-day window after registration in which a registrar could get a full refund — to "taste" each name's type-in traffic and keep only the profitable ones for free. ICANN curbed it in 2008 by making registries charge a non-refundable fee on excessive AGP deletions, and the tactic largely collapsed. It is mostly history now, but it explains why the registry lifecycle has the safeguards it does.
Related keywords
- domain tasting
- AGP
- add grace period
- domain kiting
- ICANN policy
Contributors
Namefi is a collective of engineers, designers, and operators who obsess over building tools that make managing your onchain domain names effortless.
Victor Zhou is a technology founder and standards editor focused on digital identity and trust. He founded Namefi, edits Ethereum Improvement Proposals, and previously led smart-contract architecture work at Google Labs.
His work sits at the intersection of naming, ownership, and the systems people use to establish identity online. That perspective makes him especially interested in the way names move between personal meaning, public recognition, and digital infrastructure.
For Namefi, Victor edits and writes about domains as durable digital identity: how names become ownable onchain assets, how tokenization changes custody and trust, and what naming can learn from the systems people use to establish identity online.