.NAME at a Crossroads

An anonymous reader writes "It seems the .NAME registry is at a crossroads. They say that things are going far from well, and so they have started their own registrar that is going to try to market .NAME domains to individuals, unlike all other registrars. If they don't manage, this will be the first gTLD to go bankrupt. I guess that will put a damper on any plans to introduce more new TLDs."

Comments

Re:Who wants anything but .com?

[LordWoody]

Me. Some of us still follow the distinction that the original tlds had (.edu for schools, .com for commercial, .net for networks, ISPs, etc..., .org for organizations such as community orgs, non-profits, etc..., and so forth).

While I think the whole tld was a terrible idea applied in an even worse fashion, I still register my domains based on what general tld they best fit. I have no interest in leading people to believe that our LUG is a commercial interest or that my business is some community group or non-profit. Although I am not above availing myself of the .us tld if that is the only non-misleading tld left for a given name.

With the advent of search engines like Google, the whole "what cool FQDN is your site?" is becoming irrelevant anyway.

A BIG warning

[Gudlyf]

I signed up for a .NAME domain, stupidly through Network Solutions, for a fairly high price. This was because other registries such as Go Daddy weren't registering domains under .NAME at the time (I hear they do now). I was being all hasty about things, and decided to nab my .NAME ASAP with NetSol.

The price NetSol charges, like with anything else, is outrageous, but that's not the worst of it. When I tried to have the domain transferred to Go Daddy (much, much cheaper), I found that I can't! In fact, what I believe happens is that once you apply for your .NAME domain (i.e., john.smith.name), NetSol takes ownership of "smith.name", and you're given the right to use the "john" subdomain -- it can't be transferred! (or, at least, they're not allowing it)

NetSol also makes you purchase email hosting with the domain, and tries to tack on some web hosting. Simply put, DO NOT go through NetSol for this service. (I can hear the collective, "Well DUH!" now)

This is why I'm letting my .NAME domain dry up and die, and will continue to handle my email the way I always have. There's no way in hell I'm paying NetSol's outrageous prices until I'm able to transfer to some other registry.