What Alternative Domain Registrants are out There?

Zigg asks: "With the story on NSI's webmail "service" and the rant I posted therein, I got a little more information with regards to alternative registrars that have apparently been around a few months now, thanks to ICANN. I was hoping that Slashdot readers could contribute stories of their experiences with some of these guys, to see if any of them really are better than NSI or are just worth checking out because they're not NSI?"

Register.com

I recently registered three domains trough register.com.

They use the same prices as NSI, but their service is much better:
- They provide free DNS services, but you are still able to run your own DNS servers. (A combination is also possible)
- You can update your domain settings trough a web interface and updates are therefore almost instant (and not three months like NSI).
- Tech support is very knowledgeable and usually responds within a few hours (even outside office hours!!).

The only bad thing I have to say is that their upstream provider had some connectivity problems a few weeks ago and because their free DNS servers are on the same network my whole domain did not work. However, these issues seem to be resolved and of course you are free to add one of your own DNS servers to theirs.

Re:One word... TLDNS

My understanding for the categorisation was that they represent separate databases. When a server resolves a name it checks to see which database it should look in, it then strips off the .net .com or whatever and searches that database for the relevant string.

Because the database is split up into smaller components the search is faster than it would be if there was no categorisation.

Strangely this means that the most obscure top levels should resolve fastest...

Back to your point if we didn't have any structure and anybody could register a top level domain then our Internet would be practicaly unusable. Besides you would proabably find that you would be responsible for the authorative resolution of your .shmoe domain. Which would mean you would have to have a server connected and maintained for your domain to even work.

Now what is this TLDNS stuff? The web link you gave me doesn't seem to really explain what it does and I'm hardly one to blindly install software I download to find out what it does.

PS I did echo "hmm" > .sig in Winnt and it worked for me.

hmm

Is a name a property right?

I think there are some major fundamental problems here that having multiple DNS root servers will just paper over. The major issue is that certain vested interests want to turn addresses into property rights (with associated price and thus shareholder value). Unfortunately it fails one fundamental test in that a name is not unique. Thus while a physical property has well defined boundaries as recorded by land deeds (remember that your forefathers fought for this by carving out a homestead in the wilderness), there is no natural constraints on a name/address pair. If the impact of the participants weren't so serious on the rest of the world, it'll form the basis of a Monty Python sketch ...

{humor on}
News Flash: The McDonald clan descended on the embattered hamburger chain waving haggis and yelling war cries, claiming the appropriation of their proud Scottish ancestry by a burger flipping clown was an insult to their heritage and the direct cause of the 75% unemployment rate in the internet economy. PR spokeman declinced to comment noting that kilt-wearing assistants would lead to an immediate decline in sales ....


Switch to Hospital Bedside: Expectant mother .... "I'll like to name him Bill Gates the CCCLXVII", "sorry, all booked out until DCLXV". "How about XYsaer sfgyuer". "No can do, apparently reserved for a punk rock group sometime next decade. Those music companies are really getting desperate nowadays to come up with half a good idea". "Sigh, OK, looks like I'll have to settle for a random lottery draw instead. "Will 345694857 do?"



The conflict is that NSI is wanting to act simulatneous roles of registrar (usually government fixed-fee recording service), data developer (in holding onto its yellow pages database for perhaps advertising purposes) and judge/jury in resolving name conflicts (with associated legal vigorish). There are specific reasons why land property rights have evolved separate functional groups as it has been found to be a workable solution for the last 500 odd years. Asking a bunch of companies to divvy up a name space limited by the number of recognisable English words of 7 characters or less (let's face it, most people can't remember much more than 1-2 syllables) is a sure way to degrade the language (yeah, invent more useless buzzwords). I expect a patent any day for adding new letters to the alphabet :-). Frankly, the role of branding has gotten way out of control like a hydra on amphetimines. Whether it is one variety of sugared water or another variation on a PC is becoming too mind-numbing to keep up. If the Net doesn't collapse from sheer marketing hype, the collective ennui from watching the same ads day after day will turn people off. If there was sanity in the world, I hope another Postel-in-training comes up with a naming distribution system that is not dependent on centralised roots. Alternatively emigrate to the far side of the moon just to get away from the cybernoise and pollution.

LL

Don't register in US

I think people should register with a non-US registrar - expecially if they are not American either. Since most people who get sued by large companies over their domain names are sued by US companies, having the registrar abroad will put them out of reach from the US laws, and make the trial complex, long and costly. In many countries your familly name is yours, no matter if it is copyrighted, so a US company with your familly name would be in trouble to get it back if you happen to have a registrar in one of those friendly nations.

BTW Does anyone know if it is possible to transfer a domain from a registrar to another one ? I want to leave NSI as soon as possible.

Sacrifice-the-lamb agreements

If you go through the details of the policy statements, you encounter some annoying details:

1) If you have problems with the credit card, the registar may take a look at the domain name and decide not to register it, even if you can pay them. And if you do, there's a 200-300 $ "reinstatement" fee (pricey for a $35/year contract).

"We will reinstate your domain name registration solely at our discretion, and subject to our receipt of the initial registration or renewal fee and our then-current reinstatement fee, currently set at US$200."


2) They "own" your telephone # and other details:

"You further agree and
acknowledge that we own the following information for those registrations for which we are the registrar:

(a) the original creation date of the registration,
(b) the expiration date of the registration,
(c) the name, postal address, e-mail address, voice telephone number, and where available fax number of the technical
contact, administrative contact, zone contact and billing contact for the domain name registration"

3) A 7 day notice to cancel your domain:

"You also agree that register.com shall have the right in its sole discretion to suspend, cancel, transfer or otherwise modify a
domain name registration upon seven (7) calendar days prior written notice, or at such time as register.com receives a
properly authenticated order from a court of competent jurisdiction"

I find a 200 or 300 $ reinstatement fee quite high (my auto insurance takes a 10% reinstatement fee, and for domain names, it's more than 600%?), and the other details are also quite demanding. Sure, you may argue that they are not likely to enforce it, but that's not the point - the agreement shouldn't be such a sell-your-soul and expect-us-to-cancel-when-we-want deal.

Also interesting is the fact that all the terms and conditions for the various registrars are almost identical, word by word. I think this field still needs a lot of competition.

L.

PS - If you've had good or bad experiences, please post them. A friend of mine is about to register and wants to know which company to go with. Price, quality, etc. - post the details. It will help us all.

One word... TLDNS

-- I HATE TOP LEVEL DOMAINS --

Everyone is fighting over .com addresses...the dumbest, most ambiguous endings possible. What the hell is "com" supposed to mean? Commercial? What the hell kind of category is that? It more likely should stand for "common". If I have to spend money, I should be able to get an address that I really want...like

www.joe.shmoe

Or for famous corporations...

www.microsoft.inc

Or for specialized products...

www.redhat.linux


WHY WHY WHY is it that ICANN and/or Network Solutions still feels it is necessary to try and group things into categories?

It's all BS. No one respects the categories. A big company like Microsoft is going to have microsoft.com microsoft.net microsoft.org. If you create a .web top level domain, Microsoft will demand this one too. If you created a top level domain .tractors there is a good chance that Microsoft would try to take it, even though the law allows for two companies to hold the same trademark, if they are in unrelated fields.

On the other hand, if there ARE no stupid categories, and you can have infinite choice, then companies can register their LEGAL name (like Microsoft, Incorporated is www.microsoft.inc) and I can do get www.microsoft.sucks or whatever else I want. There are simply too many possible domain combinations for TLDNS [tldns.com] (http://www.tldns.com/download/) is trying to accomplish. If we could get major browsers to automatically install TLDNS support then suddenly the Internet would be a whole new world overnight.

- JoeShmoe

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-