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First Domain Registration Competition Goes Online
Asher Lev writes "The first competition for domain name registration is now online. They aren't offering any deals, but you can check it out anyway at register.com. "
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A quick thing I wrote to discuss this, I'm out of time (have other things to do), but some of you might find this a good read:
http://coca.kellogg.nwu.edu/econ.html
It discusses why this "competitive" market, is in fact, not competitive.
Last time I registered a hostname with register.com, I was bombarded with email
solicitations for web hosting, site creation
software, etc, etc. It's the same old crap.
Your discussion seems to assume that there will be a limited number of companies that will be selling domains. It's true that the current test phase only allows in five companies, but once the test is finished any company that can gain accredidation from ICANN can sell domains. Last I heard there were about 30 more companies lined up.
.com, .net and .org databases and will be charging the registrars a yearly fee ($7/domain? I forget.) to "administer" it, so there will be a floor price domain registration, but once large numbers of companies have the right to modify the database, prices should drop to more appropriate, commodity levels.
NSI does maintain a monopoly on the
--
All of the "Registrars" (currently NSI and Register.com) are using a central db called the "Shared Registry System", which is currently maintained by NSI. The Registry is the db of record for .com, .net, and .org, and registers domains on a first come first serve basis. See http://www.icann.org/QANDA.htm.
-tk
If any other potential registrars are reading this, please consider the following approaches to differentiating yourselves from those evil bastards at NSI:
- Charge a *reasonable* renewal fee.
- Commit to maintaining a domain name in the face of trademark infringement claims until or unless a court of appropriate jurisdiction tells you otherwise.
- Train your customer service reps to treat customers like customers.
Hopefully one or more of the new registrars will be willing to do one or more of these things.I *hate* NSI.
Am I the only one who thought this was some sort of "first one to register foo.com wins a prize" deals?
The base registry information (basically, the name servers for the domain and who the responsible registrar is) is available separately from NSI's whois, on a web page at www.nsiregistry.com. I'm not sure whether I think their consequent hijacking of the rs.internic.net whois gateway that all our whois commands point to by default is good, but at least in the open source community we can fix that problem quickly if we decide to. On the other hand, since NSI is probably not going to be running the registry long term, 'nsiregistry.com' is an odd choice of domain name.
We are a long way from this multiple-registrar stuff working smoothly!! But, in the long run I think it will be better than what we have now. The transition is going to be painful and confusing, though.
--BitDancer
So I do a normal, workaday 'whois' query, and today it says at the bottom:
Well, I most certainly do NOT agree! How can my tech support people help our domain customers if we can't make "commercial use" of the informtation returned by a whois query, for gnu's sake? There's noplace *else* to get this info. I just check register.com, and their whois page just queries the NSI database, and that same message shows up at the bottom of the response screen. Which, I'm sure, is why NSI put it there.
NSI has been trying to claim that they have a compilation copyright (or something like that) on the current database. This smells like an attempt to assert that, and I sure hope the stuff hits the fan over this.
This is intolerable.
--Bitdancer
Actually, if it would improve the service, most would be happy to pay $100 or more. Charging less than a hardcover book for a domain name only benefits the squatters and overloads the system.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
They already have 741984 domains registered? I didn't think that they had been around long enough for that. Have they pre-registered a bunch of likely names and will then pass them on to the visitors to their site? That would be domain name squatting on their part.
Or is the 741984 value the total number of domain names registered on the entire 'net, including those registered by NSI? In that case, they really shouldn't have that number on their page. I mean, I could start a hamburger stand and put up a sign saying "Billions and Billions sold", but that doesn't mean that I did the selling of them.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
First off Register.com continues to censors registration requests even for domain names that NSI itself will register!!
Try registering SHITSDAASDASD.COM or some similar variation at Register.com and it will say the name isn't available even though it really is. Then goto NSI and try registering the same domain and select 'Reserve' and you'll find it works as it should since NSI removed the SHIT filter awhile back.
Appearantly Register.com isn't up to speed and when I emailed Register.com yesterday, they denied they are rejecting registration *requests* based on profane keywords even though they really are.
A more disturbing problem is that Register.com has *appearantly* blacklisted some people preventing them from registering domains through them (not sure the exact machanism, but assume it's either done via email address and/or phone#). Perhaps, this is just bad luck, but my personal experience suggests otherwise. Anyone else experience similar problems, please post and/or email me.
Bottom line is until Register.com gets their customer service and their policies straight, I'd strongly recommend people to avoid them.
At least NSI is a known quantity and while their service isn't great, they for the most part have done a decent job. So for now I'm sticking with NSI until there's a compelling reason to switch to another registrar - ie. better price and/or extra services.
Ron Bennett
... can they take "existing" domains and do the renewals for them, or do I have to take a chance by letting my current domain "Expire", enter it as new with register.com and "hope" that nobody grabs it in the mean-time?
I'd LOVE to start dumping money somewhere OTHER than NSI, but I'm not about to chance losing my domain to do it.
Their site doesn't seem to make any mention of that and you would THINK they'd also be trying to make some go of grabbing renewal profits if they could do so...
The problem with the new registrars is that they still have to go through Network Solutions' horrible database system. Almost every problem I've had with my domains has been due to records not being changed in the NSI db, usually without any indication of what was wrong, and sometimes with no indication either way for days. I have friends that have sat for weeks while their dns change forms get denied over and over again.
NSI's customer service is terrible, and I'd love to use another company that placed importance on customer satisfaction, but if you're having problems changing records on your dotcom records, I don't know how a second party like register.com can help.
If NSI allowed a competing firm to build a web interface that let you edit your records directly (instead of having to use antiquated e-mail forms with cryptic functions and names all over them), I'd move my domains to the new firm immediately. But NSI has registered over 5 million domains (and making half a million a day on registration fees!) and wants to continue doing so, so you'll never see a competing firm offering more features, a better interface, or a price less than $35/yr.
It's called a monopoly, and I think Network Solutions enjoys that status immensely.
But I guess registering in the .com domain is cheaper than the .ac (Ascension Island) domain.
-- Alastair
i believe you can find it at http://register.com/service-agreement.cgi . I had to go through the regisration process to find it.
"I think the mistake a lot of us make is thinking the state-appointed shrink is our friend." --Jack Handey
I have registered 4 domains for my business over the past week, and the final confirmation for each one came within 20 minutes. It used to take several days. As much as I hate NSI, I have to hand it to them - their response time has improved.
I haven't had to deal with their customer service... from my past experiences with them it has a *long* way to go before it would even be considered equal to that of the California Department of Motor Vehicles (lowest possible denominator).
Perhaps they have turned a new leaf now that they have competition. However, as far as I'm concerned, it's too little too late. They should have done this at least a year ago. Unless they lower their prices, I will be taking my business to register.com.
--SONET
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. --Benjamin Franklin
I was hoping they would have new TLDs ... where is -definitive- information on what new TLDs are going to be proffered and when they will activate?
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
you'll never see a competing firm offering more features, a better interface, or a price less than $35/yr.
Personally I would be willing to pay up to $100 a year if there was good service/interface I have been requesting since january to have my conformation permissions changed and have not heard a word from NSI/internic. Would switch in a heart beat.. even repay the 2 year price if I can be allowed to change my info instantly and easily.
...If their customer service is better than NSI (and how could it not be?), they'll make a killing, even if they do charge the same price.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
So what's the difference? They even call themselves "the first domain registrar to register domain names." Huh? Isn't that a redundancy? Doubletalk even?
Don't expect this to help any of those nagging NS censorship issues... since we should probably assume that NS bought all the leftover dirty ones themselves recently. Goodness, what if register.com had allowed someone to buy the mother(~.com'er)-of-all-domains?
Regards,
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.