who owns domains? what stopping me from selling them?

[Orionsbelter]

Who owns domains? we do we have to pay for them?, i really dont get who actually owns all the domains. why cant i sell them? i buy my domains for my sever provide but who do they buy it from?

 

 

its confusing

[AndyB]

time for some reading - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name

[R4nk3d]

Ok, ill try and make this simple:

 

The government owns the internet.

 

The government = ICANN (Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers)

 

The government owns all domains.

 

The government registers the domains, and then a domain registrar registers the domain to their company. I.e. www.Godaddy.com registers ILikeToParty.com to their company after someone requests to buy it, then godaddy sells it to that person.

 

Domains are very cheap, depending on what they say. Pledgeofallegiance.com last time i saw, was being bid on for $375,000.00 because of what it says. If you wanted to buy fsalgn43.com from godaddy, it would only cost about $10 from them i believe.

 

So basically the domain tree is like this...

 

Government Registers --> Domain Registrar Purchases From ICANN --> You Purchase them from the domain registrar.

 

 

You can sell them by using 2 ways:

1. You get a reseller account from a site like godaddy.com, you buy them from godaddy, and sell them to others, same as hosting.

2. You apply for accreditation to ICANN to register domains and become a certified domain registrar. This has a $2,500 not refundable fee just to apply. This also requires you to know a lot about servers and how to run a DNS server. I suggest that if you want to sell them, go with option one, because #2 has a long form to fill out which i have on my computer that is 10kb long with many questions and it costs $2,500 and you will need to script a complicated system on how to work this.

 

 

I hope this helps you.

[corbin]

$2500?  Gotta </3 the internet.

[R4nk3d]

$2500?  Gotta </3 the internet.

haha, gotta love ICANN. XD

[CroNiX]

how can 'the government' own an international entity?  If the usa was unplugged from the internet, there would still be an internet.  It has progresses way beyond that...

[AndyB]

If the usa was unplugged from the internet, there would still be an internet.

 

No kidding.

 

What ICANN really is - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Corporation_for_Assigned_Names_and_Numbers

[R4nk3d]

how can 'the government' own an international entity?  If the usa was unplugged from the internet, there would still be an internet.  It has progresses way beyond that...

I never said the U.S. government, i said ICANN, which is the corporation that runs/creates domains....

 

p.s. look at the quote:

ICANN (pronounced /aɪkæn/, eye-can) is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Headquartered in Marina Del Rey, California, United States, ICANN is a non-profit corporation that was created on September 18, 1998 in order to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly on behalf of the U.S. government by other organizations, notably the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority IANA.

[CroNiX]

The government owns the internet.

 

The government = ICANN (Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers)

 

The government owns all domains.

 

Guess I misread this

[.josh]

You know, $2500 really isn't crap in the business world.

[The Little Guy]

if ICANN charges $2500, how can they be non-profit?

 

I guess... according to some definitions, the employees are volunteer...

 

Also somewhere on these forms, I heard that large companies can just take a domain name (from smaller people) without paying the owner, or something along those lines..

[AndyB]

if ICANN charges $2500, how can they be non-profit?

 

I guess... according to some definitions, the employees are volunteer...

 

non-profit, i.e. they don't make a profit. Their expenses match their revenues. It doesn't mean everybody works for free.

[R4nk3d]

You know, $2500 really isn't crap in the business world.

You are right, $2500 isn't a lot. But the thing that makes it so hard to get accredited is the things you need to have at your business. You need servers to host the domains, you need php/asp scripts and a website to allow people to search and purchase the domains, you need to have another script to let them change the name servers, etc. It's just hard to get it all brought together.

 

P.S. For anyone who'd like to see how long the form is, heres the link:

http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/accreditation-application.htm

[trq]

You know, $2500 really isn't crap in the business world.

You are right, $2500 isn't a lot. But the thing that makes it so hard to get accredited is the things you need to have at your business. You need servers to host the domains, you need php/asp scripts and a website to allow people to search and purchase the domains, you need to have another script to let them change the name servers, etc. It's just hard to get it all brought together.

 

P.S. For anyone who'd like to see how long the form is, heres the link:

http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/accreditation-application.htm

 

Oh man, I haven't got time to read all that.

[.josh]

if ICANN charges $2500, how can they be non-profit?

 

I guess... according to some definitions, the employees are volunteer...

 

non-profit, i.e. they don't make a profit. Their expenses match their revenues. It doesn't mean everybody works for free.

 

Exactly.  Non-Profit != people don't get paid.  They still get to charge money to pay to run their business, from bills to supplies to salaries etc... and even then if the income exceeds the expenses it just gets rolled into other things.  All it really means is you write the numbers down on the paper differently.