ICANN today approved the introduction of a limited number of country code internationalised domain names (IDNs) as well as a proposal it intends to end the practice of domain tasting at its board meeting here in Paris in unanimous decisions by the board.

The practice of domain tasting has been controversial and was examined by the GNSO Council who made a number of recommendations that were unanimously accepted. The motion put agreed to will prohibit any gTLD operator that has implemented an add grace period from offering a refund for any domain name deleted during the add grace period that exceeds 10% of its net new registrations in that month, or 50 domain names, whichever is greater.

The GNSO Council report to the board that led to this decision can be found at gnso.icann.org/issues/domain-tasting/domain-tasting-board-report-gnso-council-25apr08.pdf.