Domain name registrar

A domain name registrar is a company that manages the reservation of Internet domain names. A domain name registrar must be accredited by a generic top-level domain (gTLD) registry or a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registry. A registrar operates in accordance with the guidelines of the designated domain name registries.

History[edit]

Until 1999, Network Solutions Inc. (NSI) operated the registries for the com, net, and org top-level domains (TLDs). In addition to the function of domain name registry operator, it was also the sole registrar for these domains. However, several companies had developed independent registrar services. In 1996 one such company, Ivan Pope's company, NetNames, developed the concept of a standalone commercial domain name registration service which would sell domain registration and other associated services to the public, effectively establishing the retail arm of an industry with the registries being the wholesalers. NSI assimilated this model, which ultimately led to the separation of registry and registrar functions.

In 1997, PGMedia filed an antitrust suit against NSI citing the DNS root zone as an essential facility, and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) was joined as a defendant in this action.^[1] Ultimately, NSI was granted immunity from antitrust litigation, but the litigation created enough pressure to restructure the domain name market.

In October 1998, following pressure from the growing domain name registration business and other interested parties, NSI's agreement with the United States Department of Commerce was amended.^[2] This amendment required the creation of a shared registration system that supported multiple registrars. This system officially commenced service on November 30, 1999 under the supervision of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), although there had been several testbed registrars using the system since March 11, 1999. Since then, over 900 registrars have entered the market for domain name registration services.

Of the registrars who initially entered the market, many have continued to grow and outpace rivals. GoDaddy is the largest registrar. Other widely used registrars include Enom, Tucows, and Webcentral. Registrars who initially led the market but later were surpassed by rivals include Network Solutions and Dotster.

Each ICANN-accredited registrar must pay a fixed fee of US$4,000 plus a variable fee.^[3] The sum of variable registrar fees is intended to total US$3.8 million. The competition created by the shared registration system enables end users to choose from many registrars offering a range of related services at varying prices.

Designated registrar[edit]

Domain registration information is maintained by the domain name registries, which contract with domain registrars to provide registration services to the public. An end user selects a registrar to provide the registration service, and that registrar becomes the designated registrar for the domain chosen by the user.

Only the designated registrar may modify or delete information about domain names in a central registry database. It is not unusual for an end user to switch registrars, invoking a domain transfer process between the registrars involved, that is governed by specific domain name transfer policies.

When a registrar registers a .com domain name for an end-user, it must pay a maximum annual fee of US$9.59 and for .net the maximum price for one year is set at $9.92 ^[4] to VeriSign, the registry operator for com, and a US$0.18 annual administration fee to ICANN.

Many registrars also offer registration through reseller affiliates. An end-user either registers directly with a registrar, or indirectly through one or more layers of resellers. As of 2023, the retail cost generally ranges from a low of about $9.70 per year to about $35 per year for a simple com domain registration, although registrars often discount the price for a registration when ordered with other products such as web hosting services. The price for other gTLD registrations or renewals can vary.

The maximum period of registration for a gTLD domain name is 10 years. Some registrars offer longer periods of up to 100 years, but such offers involve the registrar renewing the registration for their customer every 10 years by themselves. If the registrar is de-accredited or goes out of business the domain name will be transferred to another accredited registrar. The full 100 year registration on such a transferred domain may not apply due to ICANN having a maximum of ten years for a registration.

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DNSSEC support[edit]

The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) is a suite of Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) specifications for securing certain kinds of information provided by the Domain Name System. This involves a registrar processing public key data and creating DS records for addition into the parent zone. All new GTLD registries and registrars must support DNSSEC.

Monthly (but with approximately a three-month delay), posts registry reports created by the registries of all gTLDs.^[9] These reports list absolute numbers of domains registered with each ICANN-accredited registrar.

ICANN

Yearly (but covering only the period from 2002 to 2007), DomainTools.com, operated by Name Intelligence, Inc., published registrar statistics. Totals included .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .us. It cited "daily changes" (presumably from daily zone files) as the basis for its yearly aggregates.

Several organizations post market-share-ranked lists of domain name registrars and numbers of domains registered at each. The published lists differ in which top-level domains (TLDs) they use; in the frequency of updates; and in whether their basic data is absolute numbers provided by registries, or daily changes derived from Zone files.

The lists appear to all use at most 16 publicly available generic TLDs (gTLDs) that existed as of December 2009, plus .us. A February 2010 ICANN zone file access concept paper^[5] explains that most country code TLD (ccTLD) registries stopped providing zone files in 2003, citing abuse.

Published rankings and reports include:

ICANN registrar accreditation[edit]

ICANN registrar accreditation is a process established by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to ensure that gTLD domain registrars meet specific standards and requirements in providing gTLD domain registration services. The country code ccTLDs typically have their own registrar accreditation processes.

To become an ICANN-accredited domain registrar,^[10] companies must undergo a comprehensive and rigorous application process.

The application fee for ICANN Accreditation as of April 12, 2021, is $3,500^[11] which is non-refundable. In addition, registrars are required to provide documentation confirming that they possess access to a minimum working capital of $70,000 at the time of application.