Interic Domain Name Governing Body

I was recently asked about how domain name ownership works and what checks and balances there are in effect to keep your domain name and prevent someone else from grabbing it.

When it comes down to it, ICANN or Internic(i feel old because that’s what i call it) act as a central governing body of all the registrars. It was founded in 1998 when domain name registration first started…well happening. They are the people that manage the registrars like point2point, Network Solutions, GoDaddy and the others. If you have a problem with a registrar you go to Internic(still calling it that). It’s what keeps everyone legit and acting properly.

I’ve had to go through ICANN before when some ghetto registrar didn’t have a phone number, didn’t respond to the support e-mail, and their web site was giving errors in the dashboard. Yeah that was a lot of fun. It’s rare it ever comes down to that but it can happy.

Lately people have been hating in ICANN heavily for their sometimes liberal seizure of domain names only to give them back. The whole planet basically said “Okay U.S., you kinda started the Internet so you can control the domain names, please be cool, k?”. Now the whole planet is kinda like “uhh”…i think eventually it’s going to have to go to some other international type organization because…well yeah.

Some good links on slash dot of registrar stories.