Ranking The Domain Name Registrars

Thinking of buying a domain name? You may be interested to learn that at least one registrar will only let you lease your name, and also that you'll be signing different agreements, depending on which registrar you use. You might want to browse the Domain Name Buyer's Guide, a new site which rates the (directly-ICANN-approved) registrars according to both price and whether their contracts are consumer-friendly. (Incidentally, Chris Truax, the lawyer who represented Etoy in its domain-name fiasco with eToys, helped build this site.)

No CORE, no TUCOWS

Unfortunatelly, they are not rating CORE and TUCOWS registrars yet... And they are usually the least expensive ones.

Interesting site, but a few quirks

I like the site a lot (hope it doesn't get Slashdotted because I noticed that it uses Frontpage elements on its pages), but I have a few problems with it:

1. It uses too many graphics (a no-no if you're being billed based on bandwidth)
2. There's animated GIF's (they aren't bad because of the Unisys stuff, but these particular ones take your attention off the rest of the registrars.) Unless this is what they were trying to achieve in the first place.

On another note this site deserves a good look. These rankings will almost gurantee that you'll find the registrar you're looking for.

Yes! Finally!

After all these years, I finally have a guide to help me squat efficiently! Ha!

Network Solutions overcharges on their late fee

I just got hit with a $29.00 late fee for being one day late for a $35.00 renual payment. That's almost 100% of my yearly charge!

You have been warned...

A suggestion...

If you used another domain registrar, use their feedback form [domainname...sguide.com] and tell them about your experience so they can include your registrar on the list.

Excellent reference

They are VERY interested in the legal aspects, and having seen how they ranked NSI, I may just be switching registrars.

Anyone else get paranoid over the little ownership and transferrence clauses? I sure as heck am not interested giving someone else the right to revoke my domain!

um.. but no countries?

while the website here is an EXTREMELY good thing-- something that should have been made a LONG time ago-- it still is very incomplete.

i say this because it is completely restricted to .com, .net, and .org, totally ignoring everything else.

Some of those other-country TLDs-- .nu, .to, whatever-- may be very good for some people. I for one registered a .cx domain (see webpage and email adress above) because i liked the price (i haven't found anything comparable in .com, .net or .org areas) and have been very happy with it so far. But other than .cx, i don't really know what country TLDs are open. There is no list i am aware of that lists all the TLDs along with who you register that TLD with, how much they charge, are people outside of that country legally allowed to register domains there, are there any odd legal rules (i. e. is it possible that you could have your domain name revoked at will), or even WHERE those domains are registered. Where do you register a .my domain? (malasia, right? no?) Because damned if i know. It isn't nic.my.

and what about .int? (international. i think. i think the U.N. controls it but i'm not sure.) did you even know there was a .int? (i'm only asking because i want unsigned.int or l.int.. i don't think i'm legally allowed to have them though :)) .int isn't important, but it's indicative of the fact nobody really knows what's going on with the TLDs anymore. At least nobody you're likely to ever get to talk to, or for that matter come across on IRC/USENET..

Anything ranking or even _talking about_ non-international domains, and comparing them side by side with the international [.com .net .org] domains, would be an amazingly valuable resource. i hope that's what www.domainnamebuyersguide.com evolves into. At the moment they only offhandedely mention that country TLDs exist in the FAQ. As far as i'm aware, .us isn't even MENTIONED on the site anywhere. i thought everyone was supposed to be switching to .us..?
At any rate the domain name buyer's guide shows great promise and i wish them luck..

-mcc-baka
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IS THEFT

OOG THINK THIS GOOD IDEA!!!

OOG BACK AFTER PASSING OUT FROM DRINKING BINGE, ALTHOUGH HAVE BAD HANGOVER!!! BUT OOG THEN FIND COOL GREEN SEVEN LEAF PLANT GROWING OUTSIDE CAVE!!! OOG HAVE MUCH FUN SMOKING PLANT!!! BUT OOG START FEEL DIZZY NOW...

arrrr... whoa a domain rankings site... that's grooovvyyy, HEHE! But like, hey man, it's about time that someone rated all the domain registrars, cuz thats groovy. Like this one time, HEHE, I was totally gone, and I was thinking about getting me a domain and stuff. And dude, I knew I needed to like, register a domain from someone, but there were so many choices, man!!!! It totally blew my mind! Like there's NSI, tucows, CORE, Domain Discover, and all those places, and I'm all thinking... what's a dude supposed to do? There were, like, waaayyyy too many options, man!! And anyway, I started out all stoked about this domain thing, but with all those registrar places, I couldn't make up my mind! So like, this potentially groovilicious thang gets all bogus because I couldn't make up my mind. So it's definitely quite radical of this dude to write this domain registrar review site. I just went and saw the article and I was all, "WHOA man, that's awesome, HEHEHE!!" Well like dude, I think I need to go repack the pipe cuz it's kinda getting low and stuff... HEHE! But like, that site is cooooooolll, HEHEHEHE...

ARGGGHH!!! WHY OOG HEAD HURT AGAIN??? OOG'S EYES ALL RED AND BLOODSHOT!!! HMM, OOG HAVE MUNCHIES NOW!!! OOG GO EAT NINE BAGS OF FRITOS IN CAVE!!!

Don't use NameZero!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

They claim to offer "free domain name registration" but they they give you the "use" of a domain name of your choice for a year and you're also required to have a streaming advertisement on the site. You MUST provide your name, address, age, occupation, employment, income, etc. to any direct marketers of the company's choice. You must accept all email, mail, telephone, and direct solicitations to your Web site and at the end of a year you either have to give up your service, get a new domain name through them, or pay for the domain name and pay any transfer fees and taxes. Plus, you agree to 'defend' and 'hold harmless' the service. Which means: if you ever do get sued, you have to pay all of their legal expenses and costs. You also can't sue them, even if it IS their fault."


flatrabbit,
peripheral visionary

Questions re: Assignability of domain names

It appears that many of the registrars use contract terms requiring the registrar's consent to the assignment of domain names. (Or making domain names generally nonassignable, which amounts to the same thing, because the registrar can always consent to waive the nonassignability provision in any particular case.) Three questions:

(1) Has anyone ever been refused consent to assign a domain name?

(2) I understand that in many jurisdictions, nonassignability provisions in contracts (other than contracts for personal services) are enforceable only if they are "reasonable." Does anyone have any intelligence on whether an assignability clause is "reasonable" under the law of any jurisidiction? (That is to say, has anyone ever heard of a court considering this issue? I suspect that most registrars provide for mandatory arbitration in their contracts, and that consequently courts would not have the opportunity to consider this issue.)

(3) Aside from alleviation of chronic corporatist paranoia, what benefit do registrars hope to realize from these clauses? (Put another way, what disaster do they hope to prevent?)

Legal Consequence

There may be other legal consequences. I'm sure that the reason for leasing is precisely so that they can extract/extort more money on renewal. However, this could have other consequences they don't expect.

1) Taxation if domains are found to be property and to have value.

2) Liability for improper use. Do they really want to supervise every single domain name? If it is their property, they might be liable for its use, where providing a registration service where the user putatively owns the name might not. The NIC got sued by the AG of Pennsylvania a couple years back for issuing a couple white supremist sites. How much better if they "owned" the domain! ;-)

3) Competition in registration makes this a lease of what? If any service can register the name, how is it that they own anything which might be leased?

In any event, this is a bit of creativity that may cost them. Live by the sword, die by the sword kind of thing...

And the question you've all been waiting for...

I know what you really want to know: What did DOMAINNAMEBUYERSGUIDE.com choose for their registrar?

The answer: names4ever.com.

OTOH, I'm not sure I'd trust someone who did their page in frontpage to tell me what domain name registrar to use.

Tita-nic.com secure your domains:better registrars

Tita-nic.com [tita-nic.com] tries to list the best options available
to easily move your domains to better registrars [tita-nic.com] .
it's point and click and only takes about five days.
your domains will be safer and you save money at the same time.
good bye NSI/Network Solutions/crooks :-)

kind regards philippe, http://A-Z-Internet.com

GoodByeNSI.com

The great domain name speculator and fighter for free speach,
"domainiac" Russ Smith, opened a site where he registers
and transfers domains for you to OpenSRS.org :

GoodByeNSI.com [goodbyensi.com] or DumpNSI.com [dumpnsi.com]

Complete list of accredited registrars

You can find the complete list of accredited and operational, accredited and non-operational, and pre-accredited registrars here [icann.org].

Shouldn't the contract be very similar in all case

I mean, doesn't ICANN set out the rules by which someone can have a name?

I mean, technicall, you don't 'buy' the name. it's not a tangible thing. You don't 'lease' it for the same reason.
What you do is pay for a service that says name.com will be listed in the root nameservers wiht appropriate records for a period of time set forth in the contract. nothing more.