Domain
name registration pertains to the regulation,
ownership and administration of URL's on the Internet.
It is a form of intellectual property. The original
regulation of domain names was regulated by a
central organization called InterNIC which is
a registered service mark of the U.S. Department
of Commerce. It is licensed to the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers, which operates
the www.internic.net
web site. The InterNIC is responsible for government
regulation and resolving disputes of domain names.
Eventually, InterNIC entered into an agreement
with Network Solutions, Inc., to regulate and
administer domain name registrations.
In
October of 1998, the United States Department
of Commerce ("DoC") and Network Solutions,
Inc. ("NSI") amended their cooperative
agreement, under which NSI had been the sole registrar
and registry administrator for the .com, .net,
and .org top-level domains. This Amendment
11 required the establishment of a Shared
Registration System (SRS) in which an unlimited
number of registrars would compete for domain
name registration business utilizing one shared
registry (for which NSI would continue to act
as registry administrator).
In
November of 1998, the DoC identified ICANN, a
newly-formed, private, non-profit corporation
as the entity that would oversee the transition
to competition under the SRS. Part of ICANN's
responsibilities included establishing and implementing
a procedure for registrar accreditation that would
ensure a transition to a competitive domain name
registration system providing continued Internet
stability and domain-name durability.
On
March 4, 1999, the ICANN Board of Directors adopted
a Statement
of Registrar Accreditation Policy, which grew
out of the publicly posted Draft
Guidelines for Registrar Accreditation and
the comments received on the Draft Guidelines.
The ICANN Board directed ICANN's Interim President
and CEO to implement a program for registrar accreditation
for the .com, .net, and .org top-level domains
consistent with the Statement of Registrar Accreditation
Policy.
Between
March 11 and April 8, 1999, ICANN accepted applications
from entities seeking accreditation to participate
as one of the five domain name registrars in the
SRS Testbed Program described in Amendment 11
to the DoC's cooperative agreement with NSI. Although
originally scheduled to end on June 26, 1999,
the Testbed Program was extended several times
until its actual end date of November 30, 1999.
Since
April 8, 1999, ICANN has continued to accept applications
for registrar accreditation for the post-testbed
period of the SRS, and has accredited over 160
businesses, in addition to the original five Testbed
Program participants. For a list of all ICANN-accredited
registrars, please visit http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.htm
On
17 May 2001, ICANN posted the current version
of the Registrar
Accreditation Agreement, which is now in effect
for all accredited registrars.
In
summary of the above information which is available
via the Internet
Association for Assigned Names and Numbers,
the issuance of domain name registration is currently
administered by anyone who qualifies and agrees
to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement referred
to above. In addition to the original extensions,
i.e. .com, .org and .net, several additional extensions
have been authorized for use in conjunction with
current domain name registration policies and
procedures for over 160 businesses, including
TerenceNet,
Inc., a publicly traded company, which competes
for this service.
In
regards to choosing a domain name, though search
engine algorithms previously ranked web sites
higher when their domain name registration consisted
of their key words, this no longer appears to
be the case for the majority of search engines.
Hence, in choosing a domain name, emphasis should
be placed on "ease of use" & "branding,"
as well as "key word utilization." For
more information about domain name registration
and assisting you with choosing and registering
your domain name, please contact us. TerenceNet,
Inc., a publicly traded company, offers a full
range of Internet marketing services for our clients
including ebusiness consultation, web marketing
strategies, search engine optimization, web site
design & development, logo design, graphic
design, ecommerce solutions, shopping cart, web
site hosting & technical support, domain name
registration, perl and cgi scripts, networking,
pay per click advertising services and targeted
email marketing. |
