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Google Eyes Domain Registration Market
1sockchuck writes "Google is now an ICANN-approved domain name registrar, an intriguing move that could be tied to its blog hosting service, Blogger. Yahoo recently dropped its domain prices to $4.98, as hosting companies use domains as a cheap way to lure customers. Registrar status could allow Google to compete aggressively on price. Bloggers seem to resist paying for hosting, so cheap domains might help Google's plans for world domination."
Email, books, images, video, domain name registration and more...When will they run everything ont he internet?
Will domains registered through them rank higher in search results?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
This is a much more attractive alternative to Verisign, even over fun names like GoDaddy, and NameBargain.
Having done ISP work back in the day, I have personally submitted registrations on thousands of domains with the venerable Network Solutions. With Verisign and the recent mix, I have lost tons of my own personal domains I have collected over the years -- and registration on these things is quite expensive! Finally there are alternatives, and I think I would trust Google over Microsoft, Verisign, or the US Government. This is my Internet, and I don't want it fucked-up!
Also, I think that Google doing root nameserver fun would be more like a DNS cache for them.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Google has a very kind policy when it comes to third-party GMail hacks: They don't care. That is, they don't care at all. Google is permitted to change its structure and/or features at any time without telling a soul, rendering your application/extension obsolete. Google hasn't got the time to go after people using GMail as a personal server, nor do the staff have time to allow them and accept responsibility for their functioning. It's a fair system, in my mind.
I.e., affordable certificates, give verisign more competition - call 'em gcerts or something.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Well, they would still have to pay the registry $6 per domain like everyone else.
What google is doing is not Monopolizing. They're doing vertical integration. They're not the dominating force in any of their fields excluding search technology, and their position their is a precarious one.
They are not, nor likely will they be a monopoly.
On that note, size does not indicate malevolence. Companies that continue to have drives to do things (as opposed to exclusively being interested in sucking money out of their customers) are not the sort of threat that people keep making them out to be.
It's not the size that matters, it's the corporate culture.
There are lives at stake here!
Seems as though they could easily implement @yourdomain.com email addresses using the Gmail interface.
That would be slick.
http://www.hollowdepth.com
I've said it before and I'll say it again here. When Google creates its own Linux distro incorporating Google features into the desktop, that's when Microsoft can put up the sign, "Last one out turn off the lights."
Everybody's speculating on how this could let Google charge a fee for Bloggers to have their own domain name. Bloggers already have an FTP to your own server option so this doesn't add much.
Surely much more interesting is the concept of Gmail with your own domain name.
With an administration tool allowing Joe User to setup family and friend create email accounts under your their domain name with Google taking care of all the scanning/filtering/storage.
Such an option would give them something different to Hotmail and YahooMail to the point of being something worth paying for. Sure some ISP's already offer this but none of the web interfaces I've seen touch GMail.
That might even explain why it's still in beta...
[)amien
I bought a domain from someone once who originally bought the name from Yahoo domains. When I tried to get it transferred, I ran into a whole host of problems. The official reply from Yahoo when I tried to contact their technical support staff:
"Dear valued Yahoo customer,
We are sorry, but Yahoo is unable to offer technical support for Yahoo domains."
So I tried calling Melbourne IT (Yahoo resells Melbourne registrations), who of course told me to call Yahoo.
I wouldn't worry much about Yahoo having competition, tehy seem to be doing a very good job of shooting themselves in the foot anyway.
bash: rtfm: command not found
I often find myself writing the company name in the google search field than trying to find a randomly similar url. I think having specific domain names is loosing its importance these days because the namespace is so highly utilized.
It's clear that google will sell domain name powered by gmail accounts. So registering yourfavouritenamehere.com with google you will get @yourfavouritenamehere.com mail addresses trasparently usable through gmail webmail.
When the URL namespace gets crowded, a good search engine is the answer. The more people register domain names, the more they need to use a search engine to disambiguate the various URLs that may or may not correspond to what they're looking for. Providing cheap domain registration will lead more people to use Google to search for a particular website rather than attempting to remember a URL.