it's been around for ages, actually.
nothing new here.
35 million names registered in May. Only 8% of registrations were paid. 32 million were part of a scam. It's called "domain kiting."
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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 May 2006, out of 35 million registrations, only a little more than 2.7 million were permanent or actually purchased. The vast majority of the rest were part of the domain kiting scheme. "