Comments on: Mastering your own domain

By: Wayne

Wayne — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 14:51:46 +0000

Derek says:

I was wondering, if i create a domain name through some sort of registrar do they have any rights if I sell the name to someone?
Posted October 15, 2006 @ 6:27 pm

No Thay Dont Derek

By Internat Law In Any Contry It Is agenst The Internet Or Real Life Law For Any Or All Registrers To Forbid Thare Clients From Doing Anything With Thare Own Domain

Thare Clients Have Full And Apsalut Controle of The Domain That Thay Registerd

Ther Registrer Only Registers The Domain On The Clients Beharf Meaning It Is The Client Who Has Full Controle

By: Derek

Derek — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 00:27:43 +0000

I was wondering, if i create a domain name through some sort of registrar do they have any rights if I sell the name to someone?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 30 May 2006 06:51:17 +0000

Susan, the web hosting company will provide you with a number of POP3 e-mail accounts — all linked to your domain — which should be compatible with any POP3 client software (such as Microsoft’s Outlook). Of course, you are responsible for providing the latter.

By: Susan Reed

Susan Reed — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 09:54:23 +0000

Great article! I don’t know why I never thought of that idea for my own “personal” e-mail and websites. I’ve been using yahoo and hotmail for that! I guess for personal site with email, the feature to look at would be the e-mail program, not just the web space.

Any out there that resemble Outlook?

By: Anil

Anil — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 07:08:40 +0000

Great overview, Ed… I just wanted to clear up one opoint in your earlier post. TypePad has always supported using your own personal domain name for your blog so you’ve got complete flexibility in the address that your website lives at. We completely agree that people for whom a website is part of their identity should be able to easily control their URLs.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 04:15:37 +0000

My university alumni assoc provides an email forwarding service that is nice. All my friends have that email and no matter where I move, the email reaches me. I just have to enter the new email address for the news hosting service at my university web site and after that the mail goes to me@alumni.university.edu

By: barb

barb — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 19:04:23 +0000

I transferred a domain I inherited from Network Solutions to my webhost Doteasy that will do the registrar stuff for you (and it was also where I moved the domain). Network Solutions (to me at least) always makes like you will be sleeping with the fishes if you don’t do your registering stuff through them. Doteasy are more laid back in their approach. Take the privitization of your Whois info. NS wanted to charge a fee for it. I asked DE if they were going to do the same thing, and they will do the same thing… for free.

Sorry I missed out on your post on looking for webhosts, I would have recommended Doteasy to you.

By: Ed Bott

Ed Bott — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 15:30:49 +0000

Nope, you’re still not getting it, Bill. Secure WhoIs only controls access to the whois record. The fact that they SAY they own the domain when you do a whois lookup doesn’t mean they actually control it. When I go to my domain registrar, I have full control over every aspect of it, directly.

The larger issue you raise is one of trust and business relationships. Any domain registrar could try to screw me out of the domain, but there are procedures that keep them from doing so.

By: Bill P. Godfrey

Bill P. Godfrey — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 14:53:01 +0000

That’s what I mean by “I hope you have a good contract with them.”

Would there be anything stopping them from raising their yearly (?) fees by an unreasonable amount? Will they release the domain on your instruction?

It would be no good trying to transfer the domain to another registry (without their co-operation), because the rest of the network will recognise Secure Whois as the registrant, not you.

Still, the trade-off is that your private address is hidden from creepy people who go about looking at whois records. (Like me.)

By: Ed Bott

Ed Bott — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 13:54:59 +0000

Bill, SecureWhoIs is a service I pay for that protects my personal information from being made available to anyone (like you) who does a whois lookup.

Just about any domain registrar offers this service for a couple bucks extra. They don’t own or control access to my domain, they just control access to the whois record.

By: Bill P. Godfrey

Bill P. Godfrey — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 13:49:11 +0000

I just the whois for edbott.com and it appears that the domain is in the name of “SecureWhois, Inc.”, not Mr. Bott.

I hope you have a good contract with them.

By: Light & Dark

Light & Dark — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 02:57:56 +0000

I’m sure Ed will point this out, but Rodney’s statement

Even when your hosting provider registers the domain name for you, it is still yours and you can transfer it to a different registrar when ever you want.

isn’t really true.

A great number of hosting companies who “register your domain for you” actually register your name themselves, then let you use it for the duration of your contract with them. Should you wish to move that domain name during the contract, you may find that you can’t without their permission/authorisation. And if the reason you want to move is because your host has ceased operations, or their service has broken down, you may find yourself unable to reclaim your domain name.

Given the negligible cost of a yearly registration, it makes absolutely NO sense to risk control of your domain by accepting registration from your host, even if it’s free. It’s just not worth giving up the control.

Ed, maybe it would be worth mentioning the anonymisation services available when registering a domain for privacy sake, at some point?

Paul

By: Chris Meller

Chris Meller — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 02:47:43 +0000

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot the obligatory Seinfeld reference… “Are you still master of your domain?”

By: Chris Meller

Chris Meller — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 00:50:59 +0000

Great tutorial, Ed! I’d like to have done something like this a couple times now when I’ve been trying to explain things to people, but I don’t have that kind of patience. You are a far better man than I, sir!

Ryan: Domain names and registrars are more “global” than that. Now that registrars are a dime a dozen, it’s not as clear as it was back in the days when Verisign was the only company selling domains. A registrar is like a car dealership: They all sell the same things from a single company with different individual features and at varying prices. They all have to pay the manufacturing company a certain amount, but the rest is up to them.

Regardless of who you register your domain with, the domain is yours and can be moved around at will, just as regardless of the dealership you purchase your Ford at it’s still a Ford and can be serviced at any number of other dealerships.

As far as other fine print in regards to registrars, there’s not a whole lot to it. Registrars like Godaddy offer a number of other features (mostly useless for those who have a hosting plan somewhere else), so it’s just a matter of finding what you need at a price you like. Aside from that, I’ve heard a few bad rumors about registrars shutting down domains for violating their TOS by running a certain type of website on a domain registered through them lately. As with anything, be sure to at least skim the TOS and other applicable policies to make sure they don’t make any outrageous claims.

By: Rodney Buike

Rodney Buike — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 22:35:48 +0000

Great explanation Ed!

Ryan, when you register a domain name, it is yours and the registrar is no longer in the picture (besides renewal time). Every year you have to renew your domain name but you can move from registrar to registrar if you like.

Even when your hosting provider registers the domain name for you, it is still yours and you can transfer it to a different registrar when ever you want.

Switching registrars usually means paying for another year, even if the domain is not up for renewal yet.