Web Site Address ( Beyond a joke )

[n-gen]

im really confused

im either going mad or the internet industry is ripping everyone off.

the way i understand it the registras ( the people who sell you the domain) do not actuall own any domain they only aquire it when requested ( by you the customer ).

they then charge you for there setup costs, make you pay for the address per year when it has cost them nothing at all ( apart from staff wages ).

and to top it all off they will only rent you an address not sell it outright. so you have just payed a company to rent you an address that they dont even own for a limited period, making you pay per year on top of a setup charge when all there doing ( is counting the money)

is there any way to bypass this system and get addresses straight from the internet commisiony thingy ( i forgot the name) and cut all the rubbish with the domain sellers.

thanks guys.

p.s. i might be wrong in how it works correct me if u know how it works

[TiefighT]

Its just kind of the way things worked out. The internet was originally purely givernment run (ARPANET), and was gradually opened to commercial and private use. The transition of domain name responsability went to the National Science Foundation, which then passed it to IANA (which I believe included Network Solutions as the sole conractor for registering domain names to the public).

From there we had a bunch of drama over the relenquishing of control to international organizations, but I am a little shady on the details on that.

Then, in the late 90s, control went to ICANN, whose main goal was to encourage competitive growth in domain registration, which is why it allowed the creation of a bunch of other registrar services (if I remember correctly, Network Solutions was the only place to go to get a domain pre-ICANN).

So yah, its supposed to be competitive, and the governing bodies who control it would rather deal with a finite number of acredited registrars.


...at least I think thats right...

[flipshark]

Basically how it goes is a registrar gets permission to rent/sell/lease the domains names from ICANN (or whereever). They pay a set fee of around $7.00 per name registered.

Registar's with permission are listed as ICANN accredited registrars (anyone else is a reseller or a fake site/scammer).

So if godaddy has domains for $9.99 they make $1.99/sale.

Now a few years back a domain cost $35.00 minimum and a few more years back registerig a name cost hundreds of dollars.

Maybe you should simply change your registrar to a cheaper place with no setup fees.

[n-gen]

fair enought but how do u buy a domain outright

[Hellsbellboy]

yeah I know some people use to 'buy' domain names and then sell them for thousands if not millions of dollars.. things like sex.com and junk like that.. that still go on?

[ad_mtk2]

Originally posted by Hellsbellboy
yeah I know some people use to 'buy' domain names and then sell them for thousands if not millions of dollars.. things like sex.com and junk like that.. that still go on?

yes: places like this

[qetret]

Originally posted by Hellsbellboy
.. things like sex.com

well theres some history behind that...

[TiefighT]

Nope, from what I understand you can't buy them outright, you basically "lease" them for a certain amount of time from ICANN by way of an acredited registrar.

Once they are leased, however, you can transfer the ownership of them whenever you want to whomever you want. The amount someone pays you to get you to transfer the ownership is pretty much irrelevent (but there are rules in regards to registering copyrights, trademarks, etc.)

The previous owner of a "lease" usually gets preference when you go to renew it, and the length of time you can "lease" it for seems to be going up (register.com says it can sell a domain for up to 10 years). So in theory, you could retain ownership for as long as you wanted to, but it would mean renewing the lease every so often.

[Nionicle]

bleh i read that 2 people were arguing over who owned sex.com in court.

[qetret]

Originally posted by Nionicle
bleh i read that 2 people were arguing over who owned sex.com in court.

I believe its settled now and the domain is back to its rightful owner, but the dude who has just got his domain back is now sueing rthe guy who took it from hime for millions. But, the guy who took it from the the dude who's sueing is staying in another country so that he doesnt have to pay any comensations...if that makes any sense
Thats the rough outline I think