PART 1
Essential Internet Knowledge

Chapter 2
The Administration of the Internet

Page 15 - Registrars for gTLDs (generic TLDs)


Domain Name Registry and Registrars for gTLDs

Registration of a gTLD domain name such as a .com, .org, .net .biz, .info or .name does not directly involve any of the regional registries discussed previously. A regional registry is not the same as a registrar.

Rather, to register a .com, .org, .net .biz, .info or .name domain name, i.e. a gTLD, it must be registered through a domain name registrar [or one of its resellers - see below] accredited by ICANN, the technical coordinating organization of the Internet.

As once nicely defined by VeriSign (the later owners of Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI), since sold to Pivotal Private Equity), a registrar is "the front-end function that is responsible for managing the customerfacing portion of the domain name registration business."

A list and description of all ICANN Accredited and Accreditation-Qualified Registrars of Domain Names is found at http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html.

The ICANN-accredited registrars use a "Shared Registration System" (SRS) which is described at
http://www.icann.org/registrars/accreditation-overview.htm:

"The Shared Registration System ("SRS") is a domain name registration system for competitive registrars in the .com, .net, and .org top-level domains. The SRS was created in the spring of 1999 through the initiative of the United States Department of Commerce under an amendment to its cooperative agreement with Network Solutions, Inc. [NSI]. Under this domain name registration system, competing ICANN-accredited registrars register domain names utilizing one shared, central registry operated and maintained by NSI."

An updated history of the SRS is found at http://www.icann.org/registrars/accreditation-history.htm

Although only registrars accredited by ICANN are authorized to register .com, .org, .net .biz, .info or .name domain names in the registry, some of them offer their services through resellers, and this accounts for the great number of Internet firms now offering domain name registration services for .com, .org, .net .biz, .info or .name on the Internet.

Even if a gTLD domain name is registered through a reseller, the official registration body is the accredited registrar, who also has the recordkeeping duty regarding the domain registrant.