Who owns domains?

[Tom McCurdy]

How can companies sell domains names, i mean how do they own it-- is there a way to get them for free. How come we have to pay for them by the year.

[Evo]

How can companies sell domains names, i mean how do they own it-- is there a way to get them for free. How come we have to pay for them by the year.Currently there are several companies that provide domain name registration services. The fee that you pay when you register a domain is to cover costs of administering the database, and most likely (now) a small profit.

You can use the domain name as long as your registration is current. If you let your registration lapse, someone else can register your domain and take it. This happened in the past to some rather large companies.

If you have a domain name registered to you, you can transfer that domain to another person or company. Some people realized that by registering all the popular names that they could then offer to transfer registration to another party and ask for money, the amount depending on how badly the person/company wanted that particular domain.

Some companies claim to offer free domains if you sign up for their services, but in reality, you are paying for the domain by paying other fees.

I don't know how much detail you want on the history of domain names. If you want more details, let me know.

[Tom McCurdy]

I understood that part of domains, but I was wondering who actually has the right to sell these allocations of spots of the internet. I mean how would say I become a domain name selling company. How is it that someone has the ablity to sell domains.

[honestrosewater]

I would guess it's just to keep track- so several people aren't using the same address- and replacing each other's files.

So the costs are mainly record keeping.

Oh yeah... see: www.icann.org and www.iana.org
There is also more info here:
www.internic.net

[Evo]

I understood that part of domains, but I was wondering who actually has the right to sell these allocations of spots of the internet. I mean how would say I become a domain name selling company. How is it that someone has the ablity to sell domains.Ah, well that's different.

Go here http://www.icann.org/registrars/accreditation.htm

scroll down to "Becoming an ICANN-Accredited Registrar"

[Eh]

Anyone else remember the good old days when Network Solutions had a virtual monopoly on domain names?

[Tom McCurdy]

alright thx for the help

[Greg Bernhardt]

It's actually the right to allocate and sell IP address which the domains are translated from.

[Tom McCurdy]

thx again for the response--- who set this system up when the net first started

[Evo]

It was Tim Berners-Lee, an engineer working at Cern that came up with the addressing scheme in 1990. He could have made a fortune, but he was afraid that if he used his addressing plan for profit that other people would also develop differing plans for profit and the internet would become a nightmare, so he gave his "world wide web" addressing to the world for free.

In 1994 I had a great article on him, it's probably still on an old computer I have in the basement.

Here is info on him. He is known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He's awesome, IMHO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee