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In a sense you are, and you are not. What makes this confusing is you are buying an exclusive use of a domain on renewable terms with a period of contract defined therein. Actual ownership of a domain is subject to interpretaion of what a domain constitutes. IMO, absolute ownership would not be clear until you have rights such that neither a registrar nor any root server owner nor anyone else may alter or interfere with the domain name you registered and corresponding DNS entries, in perpetuity.

If you would like to register a domain wherein the contract with the registrar confers you explicit title in ownership (albeit, once again the derivative rights from that are unclear and subject to interpretation) take a look at Gandi.net who have Terms and conditions in contract which appear very favourable to the registrant.

A more philosophical way to look at this is ask yourself, if you are a home owner, whether you own that house outright, or if, as is usual, the deeds are owned by your mortgage lender and you will be paying them interest on a loan for any number of years to come. Many aspects of control derive from lend or lease variations, see Marx for some good rants.

In the meantime, boycott NSI and use one of the alternative registrars, like Gandi. The cost is reasonable ($10), and seem to be fairly quick at getting things set up (less than a few hours in my experience).

One of the domains I own was purchased through Gandi, as they were the cheapest registrar for single domain registrations at the time (at 12 euros = ~ C$16, US$10). I'm not sure if they still are, though. Anyway, they are based in France, and don't seem to have any problem with registering names containing ascii (102,117,99,107) or various other things. =)

Gandi.net is cheaper than that. The price is 10 Euros, which is about $11USD depending on the current exchange rate. I've had a few friends tell me good things about them.

-antipop

Gandi and most of the Core registrars will register a domain with fuck in it. Gandi is in Europe so they'll charge you with those silly Euros, but assuming you don't have some real shitty credit card that shouldn't be a problem if you're outside Europe, you should be able to find a Core registrar from your country of origin if that's the kind of thing you're into.

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Was refered by url: www.gandi.net who will sell you a domain name for the very reasonable rate of 12 Peso^H^H^H^H Euros/month.

Had any of them READ their contract when they 'registered' a domain, they would clearly see that they do not 'OWN' it, that this is merely a registration of a name in the DNS, and all that that implies.

The client ("SLD holder") owns the registered domain name ("SLD"). GANDI ("Registrar") simply acts on the client's behalf.

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Had any of them READ their contract when they 'registered' a domain, they would clearly see that they do not 'OWN' it, that this is merely a registration of a name in the DNS, and all that that implies.

The client ("SLD holder") owns the registered domain name ("SLD"). GANDI ("Registrar") simply acts on the client's behalf.

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My personal favourite:
www.gandi.net
12 Euros for a domain with basic (free) dns hosting. No legal strings or ties (ICANN dispute policy) and no hassles changing and configuring your data. Sweet

Personally, I use gandi.net. Twelve Euro's (~ $12, US) is pretty good for a domain. But if you want to do your own research, check out the Domain Name Buyers Guide. They rate registrars by price, leagal contract, and best overall. It's well worth a look.

About Network Solutions... they're anything but even handed or consistant. Of course, in the past, they HAVE let expired domains go back into the public pool and be re-registered by another person. (Take "police.net"... that was a customer at an ISP I worked for that let their domain name drop.) I know of many others. I also remember years ago they're harassing us and denying us a registration for "bingo.net", even though it was not taken at all! They would not let us register it!

Anyone who has had a great number of dealing with NetSol will have some war stories. This is definately a case where I'm going to vote with my dollars. I encourage others to do the same.

NetSol'n is not a very good thing. They only got where they were by holding a monopoly on domain names and charging outrageous prices for them (sound familiar?). It doesn't surprise me that much that they are doing this because they have generally been an abusive registrant. I feel sorry for those poor souls who still have domains through them, because they are paying outrageous prices and no longer own their domains (with the new license). It's pretty sad that I registered my domain with Gandi.net for only $11 and that people who pay Network Solutions several times as much don't even own them. Oh well. Network Solutions also seems to think that it's above the rules. I wished to register my family domain, mendelson.net, and they were squatting it. Worse, however, was that they aren't even paying for it! Their license on the domain expired on November 14, 1999, and they still own it! Who knows what crazy rules allow them to do so.

NetSol'n is not a very good thing. They only got where they were by holding a monopoly on domain names and charging outrageous prices for them (sound familiar?). It doesn't surprise me that much that they are doing this because they have generally been an abusive registrant. I feel sorry for those poor souls who still have domains through them, because they are paying outrageous prices and no longer own their domains (with the new license). It's pretty sad that I registered my domain with Gandi.net for only $11 and that people who pay Network Solutions several times as much don't even own them. Oh well. Network Solutions also seems to think that it's above the rules. I wished to register my family domain, mendelson.net, and they were squatting it. Worse, however, was that they aren't even paying for it! Their license on the domain expired on November 14, 1999, and they still own it! Who knows what crazy rules allow them to do so.

Julz (who you calling yella?)

I have done a little, really small, amount of research into this and the two companies that I have contacted will both do a transfer of a domain for you and can't see that there should be any problem with transferring domains from Internic, provided you're all paid up with Internic. All they need to do is change the registrar for the domain and charge you for 1 year plus they give you the balance remaining on the domain currently.

The two companies are JumpDomain and Gandi.

Gandi costs 12euro, about $12US per year and the transfer is free plus you get the credited for the balance of the domain. Gandi is also an accredited registrar with ICANN.

JumpDomain offers basically the same for $14.99US per year, except their conditions are a little less forgiving. You still own the domain though, unlike NSI. They are not an accredited registrar, but they use TUCOWS OpenSRS who apparently are and they say they are an RSP of TUCOWS.

I haven't transferred my domains as yet, as I'm waiting for some my information from Gandi about minimum transactions.

Hope this helps. :-)

Has anyone here used Gandi? They were recommended by the Domain Name Buyer's Guide as being cheap and non-evil. But before I start registering with them, does anyone have any personal experience with them?