35 million names registered in April. 32 million were part of a kiting scheme

[Jace]

Very interesting read, would love to get MikeAI's take on all this

http://www.bobparsons.com/DomainKiting.html

In a nutshell, here's how domain kiting works.
Domain kiting registrars put up mini-Web sites — loaded with search engine links — for domains names for which they never pay. When people land on these Web sites and click on the links, money is made. It's easy to spot one of these registrars as the number of total registrations they make often far exceed the number of permanent registrations — or names for which they actually pay. This is why during the month of April 2006, out of 35 million registrations, only a little more than 2 million were permanent or actually purchased. The vast majority of the rest were part of the domain kiting scheme.

Now let's drill down a little further into domain kiting 101.
A registrar who participates in this scheme – Go Daddy and its affiliates do not participate in this scheme – makes a large deposit – sometimes a huge deposit – at a registry. Then the registrar registers as many domain names as the deposit will allow. For example, if the registrar makes a $600,000 deposit at VeriSign Registry, they could register 100,000 .COM domain names as .COM names cost $6.00 per year.

It's all about catching Internet traffic.
For each domain name registered, the domain kiting registrar puts up a simple Web site filled with search engine links and hopes users land on that page and click on the links. Anytime an Internet user lands on one of their mini-Web sites and clicks on one of the links, money is made.

Meet DirectNIC.
You might find the registration statistics of DirectNIC somewhat interesting. DirectNIC registered more than 8.4 million domain names in April 2006, but only permanently registered — or paid for — 51.4 thousand of those. The trend was the same in March, when DirectNIC registered 7.6 million names and only permanently registered — or paid for — 52.5 thousand. Whatever could DirectNIC be doing? Why are they dropping and re-registering all those names – again – and again – and again? And why doesn’t ICANN care?