Google, the ubiquitous group running the Search Engine, shopping portal , news group archives and world famous gmail have today begun plans to break into the Domain Name Regisitration market.
A quick visit to the IANA list of Registrars shows a new entry in the charts at number 895 domain pickers …
891-894 Unassigned
895 Google, Inc.
896-900 Unassigned
How long until they start a 1&1 type campaign of loss-leading sales to take-over the registration world ?
A quick glossary of terms, as they’re often misquoted …
A REGISTRY is the company running the database which stores the allocated domain names, their nameserver details etc.
There are only a few Registries Verisign/NSI (.com/.net) , Affilias (.info), Nominet (.uk) etc.
A REGISTRAR is the ICANN approved company that can update the registry with the details of a new domain name.
The IANA list above shows those allocated a registrar id number.
A REGISTRANT is the person (a company is also a person in this respect) who is listed as “owning” a domain. Their details should be publicly visable as part of the WhoIs data . Certain registrars abuse their powers and allow you to hide such details from the public domain as a money-generating scheme, mostly used by scammers, or those “frightened” that the legitimate listing of the data will lead to more spam by the sh!ts who data-mine WhoIs information.
A REGISTRATION AGENT is whom a registrant gets to regsiter their domain name. Agents may be a part of theregistrar themselves (for example registering direct with Nominet at £80+vat) or a member/reseller of one of the registrars.
