Domain Tasting

I let a site expire with GoDaddy. Shortly thereafter eNom showed up under whois as having registered it for a year (no user name, just eNom default contact info):
Creation date: 09 Sep 2006 11:59:00
Expiration date: 09 Sep 2007 11:59:00
A link at the bottom of the placeholder page informed me they wanted $200 for it. My fault for letting it expire, but what happened next was just odd.

I checked it a month later eNom no longer had it registered. So somehow they made it appear as if they had registered a site for a year when they actually did not. I think there are an awful lot of shady things going on in the DNS registration world. I believe the term for this is "Domain tasting".

If you want to see some funny stuff, visit the eNom Wikipedia entry... they are doing a masterful job of keeping it clear of criticism. If this page is to be believed, eNom has actually facilitated Domain Tasting and Domain Kiting by offering reseller accounts with scripts that automate the process.

ICANN is aware of Domain Tasting, and is attempting to remedy it.