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Besides, I was never suggesting sequences of 9 random alphanumericals.

No, you were suggesting 5 random alphanumericals. Which wouldn't work, by the way -- you'd very quickly fill up on things like sex.whatever.

Because there are plenty of other people who have just as much right to the name "coke" as the coca-coly company.

Which is why we mostly do first-come, first-serve.

Examples include suppliers of dry-destilled charcoal, columbian drug-cartels, people working to help coke-addicts, people who think the coca-cola company sucks, etc...

Wow, watch this: charcoal, columbian-coke, coke-addiction, cokesucks, coca-cola. And whoever is first to register gets "coke".

Actually, it's not named Apple Corp, it is named Apple Inc (and it was Apple Computer Inc until 8. jan 2007).

For someone so worried about confusion: I very specifically meant Apple Corps, which does not sell computers.

Many companies use different names when they register as a business, and when they conduct their business with real customers.

And in the corporate world, domain names are not business registrations, and business registrations are not domain names. Domain names are where they conduct business with real customers.

So, let's talk about Apple Computer: I don't go to applecomputerinc.com, I go to apple.com. If Apple Corps wanted a real web presence, they'd probably own applerecords.com (which it seems they do, it's just mis-managed). If Apple Records got there first, I could live with applecomputer.com, or mac.com (which does exist, and is owned by Apple).

Furthermore, this doesn't stop us from doing nice things like redirecting to a more relevant site, if you think someone might get lost -- parrotcode.org is about a VM called "Parrot", and it does say "Parrot is not about parrots", with a link to a Google search on parrots, the first result of which is the Wikipedia page. That Wikipedia page, by the way, is about the birds, but does provide a link to a disambiguation page, which includes links to pages about Parrot VM, and Parrot Records, and so on.

Of course, SSNs doesn't work within USA, so your idea may still have some merit.

You do realize that was sarcasm, right?

In the real world, we almost never run into people with the same first and last name, and if we do, we have things like nicknames, or "of $state", to sort them out. However, the real world is not exactly analogous here, as we do have a central authority of this kind of thing. Just as there can be only one "Apple, Inc" in the US, there also can be only one "apple.com" on the Internet. Both of them are generally first-come, first-serve. I just don't get why you want us to add random alphanumeric strings -- if you aren't imaginative enough to register "cokesucks" when Coca-Cola already owns "coke", then you don't deserve a web presence anyway.

"I don't like big companies putting up billboards along the main roads, while other people with fewer resources, who has something to say, are not allowed to put their own billboards up..."

Ahem. Domain Names are dirt cheap.

Besides, you yourself said:

And the coca-cola company probably has enough money to repeat registering their name untill they come up with something more rememberab

I asked a buddy with a plethora (yes, a plethora) of domains. He recommended:

http://www.namesecure.com/

I asked him if he'd look at GKG.net. He said their agreement says: "GKG reserves the right to suspend, cancel, transfer or modify your services in the event that: ..."

Just another GoDaddy.

I switched to GoDaddy for this exact reason. They also happen to have great 24/7 phone support unlike my previous very, very,crappy registrar.

I've been using Namesecure for years, since back when they were a decent company. Originally they were part of 555-1212.com back when you could do reverse phone lookups there for free.

You could call Namesecure up on the phone and talk to an actual tech person who would fix things on the spot. Now, the only way to reach them is by fax or email -- they have painstakingly removed every telephone contact.

Back in the day, I had some custom configuration done on my mail routing. Now I can't receive email from Namesecure any more. I can receive email from anybody in the world, as long as it's not sent from a Namesecure internal mailserver. They swear there's nothing unusual about my domain, but they can't explain why their mail doesn't come through. This makes tech support rather difficult, especially if I forget to patch up the "Reply-To" header...

Having said all that, though, the Namesecure product is pretty good. Easy signup, easy administration of email and website forwarding, A, CNAME, and MX, and so on. Their support is absolutely the suck, but they're pretty stable so I hardly ever need the support anyway.

The outgoing message on their one remaining phone line (which does not record) says they've turned off live tech support "to remain competitive". They charge from $9.90 to $15/year depending on term; I'd gladly pay double those prices if they'd just turn the &*$&^$ phones back on!

I switched a couple domains to Register.com a while back, but Register.com framed my website (breaking it) and put a big ol' banner ad underneath it, which they'd gladly remove if I paid extra. Register.com wanted twice what Namesecure did for their basic service, and many of the standard services from Namesecure were upgrades at Register.com so the actual price ended up being even more. But they had tech support: Live people answering the phone, people who actually knew things, so that's why I went there. However, Register.com couldn't do the type of email forwarding I'd been getting at Namesecure so I ended up switching back and crossing my fingers.

Having my domains set up at Namesecure did save my ass when I got screwed by an ISP -- I switched to a different provider, updated my zone file at Namesecure, and was back on the air immediately. I didn't have to try and wrestle my domain away from the previous ISP. (OTOH, if I have a Problem with Namesecure I'll have to wrestle my domains away from them.)

So, here's my vote for Best Registrar: Namesecure doubles their pricing across the board and uses the extra money to hook up with Register.com's helpdesk.

Caveat: Namesecure appears to be owned by Verisign / Network Solutions (at least that's who owns their site certificate) so they are probably part of the Axis of Evil. This would explain the tech support.

How come it's so easy for someone to transfer a domain registrar via social engineering and yet it's so hard to do it legitimately?

My recent attempt to move a domain from Verisign to Namesecure ended up taking the domain off the air for over a month... Namesecure has completely dropped telephone support -- their email support being consistently unhelpful and clueless I ended up moving the domain to Register.com instead.

I have so far had good luck using qwho.com, on their front page they offer $35 registration for 2 years through namesecure.com .

Namesecure.com was very prompt in their transfer of the DNS to my server and all around had good customer service (they answered their customer service line in only 3 rings)

Namesecure.com offers other services such as email forwarding and the such, but I have not used nor priced these items.

From http://www.namesecure.com/newsrel ease/042199.cfm

NameSecure.com will enter into an accreditation agreement as soon as possible with ICANN and expects to begin acting as a .com, .net, and .org registrar immediately upon the conclusion of a 60-day "testbed phase" currently scheduled to end on July 9, 1999.