Often the tasters will try to sell those domains at inflated prices, she said. Network Solutions has tried to stop the behavior by registering a domain name for four day after someone conducts a search for one on its Web site.

Critics have decried the approach, saying that it forces customers to pay Network Solutions for a domain or face further competition when the domain goes back on the market. Wade countered that Network Solutions doesn't charge any more for the domain, and it prevents the domain from being immediately scooped up by a taster.

However, Wade said Network Solutions will stop the practice if ICANN imposes a fee.

"At that point, we believe that our customers would no longer need protection from front running," Wade said in an e-mail.

The fee proposal is contained within ICANN's 2009 fiscal budget, which will be discussed in Paris in June, Keenan said. It must be approved by ICANN's board as part of the budget.

It must also be approved by registrars that comprise two-thirds of the revenue ICANN receives from domain registrations, Keenan said. There are about 900 or so registrars for the seven generic Top Level Domains (TLDs) that have the Add Grace Period: ".com," ".net," ".org," ".info," ".name," ".pro," and ".biz" he said.

Registrars have been complaining to ICANN about domain tasting for some time and appear ready to support the plan. Some registrars, such as GoDaddy.com, have dissuaded tasters from using their registration services by reserving the right to charge a fee even for domains that are returned within the five-day period.

Network Solutions also deflects tasters by not issuing bulk refunds for registrations before the five-day grace period expires, Wade said.

However, most tasters end up become registrars themselves, said Warren Adelman, GoDaddy's president and chief operating officer. "We hope that we are really beginning to see the end of an era of what's been negative behavior," he said.

The only other option to stopping tasting would be to get rid of the grace period, which would hurt users, said John Levine, an author and technology consultant. The fee is the easiest route, he said.

"It will definitely stop domain tasting," Levine said. "It's clear they [tasters] have to register several hundred domains to find one that will pay off. It's pretty hard to find a hither-to-unknown domain to find $50 of revenue."