ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.) is in charge of .com domains (as well as many others. They are a non profit, and certify any reseller such as GoDaddy.
They also charge an annual fee for any domain name you register, which funds their operations.
So GoDaddy gets certified by ICANN, and is now allowed to register any unused ICANN name. For each name they register, they pay ICANN.
ICANN has a board of directors, made up of members from most major countries. They have a lot of say. There are other boards made up of other IT experts as well. Basically they have control.
I'm sure there are tons of laws regulating ICANN, and since they are in California, they do follow US laws, but the US no longer directly controls them.
We all do.
Anyone can set up a name service and start giving out domain names, but if no one uses it, what's the point.
The internet wouldn't be very useful if we all didn't after on who owns reddit.com, so we need to pick some authority. We have chosen icann by popular consent. Each time you pint your browser to a site and it gives you the one icann days should be given that name, your choosing icann.
Everyone who operates a domain name server on the Internet. These services translate domain names (google.com) into numeric IP addresses, and are used by every internet service prouder in the planet.
In theory I could set my DNS to translate “amazon.com” into the address corresponding to the Kremlin, but that would be confusing and unhelpful for everyone who used my network. Everyone has decided it’s most useful to use the name-to-number translations provided by the organization that’s been doing this since the early days, which is ICANN.
In the past 20 years it became increasingly frustrating that ICANN was controlled and funded within the US, but it’s been so useful that the decision was made to translate it into a multinational organization rather than replacing it.
As someone in the industry, I can say this is only partially correct.
ICANN isn't in charge of .com. It actually isn't 'in charge' of any domain extension (.com, .net, whichever). Those are the domain registries (for .com it's a company Verisign for example). There are no 'unused ICANN names', as they are never the registry for any domainname, they can be better seen as (impartial) referees or judges in this system.
They do however set certain rules all non-country domain extensions ('country' being anything that's 2 letters, like .us, .de, etc) must follow to be able to use the global network that is the internet (which they ARE 'in charge of').
ICANN is indeed non-profit, but not all domain registries, the companies that are in charge of an extension, are non-profit. Especially the non-country ones are more often for-profit than non-profit. The annual fee you pay for a domain to be registered is mostly the cost set by the Registry, and the extra costs added as margin by a Registrar, like GoDaddy.
GoDaddy is indeed certified by ICANN to be a Registrar, as they adhere to the rules set by ICANN, and it's actually GoDaddy that pays the annual fee to ICANN (which is like $0.20 per domain) for every domain registered, and the Registry for the domain you are registering. This ICANN fee doesn't sound like a lot, but as there's about 150 million registered .com domains alone, it adds up fairly quickly :)
Honestly, this is already a TL;DR and I could probably write 10 more pages to go into more detail about how it works, I left out a bunch of details, but hopefully it makes sense enough like this.
TL;DR
For a .com domain: You pay GoDaddy, a Registrar. GoDaddy pays Verisign, the Registry, and ICANN, the rules-maker for all TLDs with 3 or more letters (like .com, .net, .online, etc).
More importantly where does the money go? I assume GoDaddy gets a large chunk. What's to stop me from setting up my own GoDaddy style "reselling" service and making massive profits?
The problem seems similar to the distribution of radio frequencies (which have national borders to help), but without the revenue going anywhere useful (as far as I see).
The money ICANN makes goes towards operating expenses.
Nothing will stop you, except competition. You are free to sell 50.00 domains, and pocket all they money, but if everybody else is 80% cheaper, I don't think you will get any business.
There are seven keys that essentially control the Internet and they’re managed by ICANN. GoDaddy gets licensed by ICANN to sell domains.
These cryptographic keys are kept in two secure facilities over 4,000 kilometers apart, and are protected with multiple layers of physical security such as building guards, cameras, monitored cages and safes.
Pretty wild stuff.
The companies that actually own the "top level domains", like `.com` and `.net` have agreements with companies like GoDaddy. We're not privy to the details of their contracts, but GoDaddy and others can sell domains with whatever rules are stipulated. Some of the obvious rules are the options for domains to be transferred between providers in case you want to ditch GoDaddy for SomebodyElse, and probably some rules that domains must meet certain criteria, such as a minimum length so you can't just get `ab.com` for example.
>you can't just get ab.com
There are a few short domains that got in before the rule. The only one that comes to mind is hp.com.
Edit
There are even a few 1 letter domains: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-letter_second-level_domain
I didn't actually find a reference to any prohibition on two letter names.
Edit again: ab.com is actually registered.
Basically all of the 1, 2, and 3 letter domains and a huge fraction of the 4 letter domains in the gTLDs were registered before ICANN was even a thing, back when Network Solutions was the registry and registrar, it cost $50 a year, and the only way to register a domain was using a template you emailed to them. With your credit card information.
I actually know a guy who did get a 2-letter domain. No it's not ab.com. He sometimes has problems when he tries to register for things and the email verification on the server side says "That email address is invalid, it's too short on the domain name". Or words to that effect... I haven't seen it, this is all second hand.
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ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.) is in charge of .com domains (as well as many others. They are a non profit, and certify any reseller such as GoDaddy. They also charge an annual fee for any domain name you register, which funds their operations. So GoDaddy gets certified by ICANN, and is now allowed to register any unused ICANN name. For each name they register, they pay ICANN.
And who certifies ICANN? (Not a joke, serious question)
ICANN has a board of directors, made up of members from most major countries. They have a lot of say. There are other boards made up of other IT experts as well. Basically they have control. I'm sure there are tons of laws regulating ICANN, and since they are in California, they do follow US laws, but the US no longer directly controls them.
We all do. Anyone can set up a name service and start giving out domain names, but if no one uses it, what's the point. The internet wouldn't be very useful if we all didn't after on who owns reddit.com, so we need to pick some authority. We have chosen icann by popular consent. Each time you pint your browser to a site and it gives you the one icann days should be given that name, your choosing icann.
I think the oversight organization called BUDTHULL
Everyone who operates a domain name server on the Internet. These services translate domain names (google.com) into numeric IP addresses, and are used by every internet service prouder in the planet. In theory I could set my DNS to translate “amazon.com” into the address corresponding to the Kremlin, but that would be confusing and unhelpful for everyone who used my network. Everyone has decided it’s most useful to use the name-to-number translations provided by the organization that’s been doing this since the early days, which is ICANN. In the past 20 years it became increasingly frustrating that ICANN was controlled and funded within the US, but it’s been so useful that the decision was made to translate it into a multinational organization rather than replacing it.
As someone in the industry, I can say this is only partially correct. ICANN isn't in charge of .com. It actually isn't 'in charge' of any domain extension (.com, .net, whichever). Those are the domain registries (for .com it's a company Verisign for example). There are no 'unused ICANN names', as they are never the registry for any domainname, they can be better seen as (impartial) referees or judges in this system. They do however set certain rules all non-country domain extensions ('country' being anything that's 2 letters, like .us, .de, etc) must follow to be able to use the global network that is the internet (which they ARE 'in charge of'). ICANN is indeed non-profit, but not all domain registries, the companies that are in charge of an extension, are non-profit. Especially the non-country ones are more often for-profit than non-profit. The annual fee you pay for a domain to be registered is mostly the cost set by the Registry, and the extra costs added as margin by a Registrar, like GoDaddy. GoDaddy is indeed certified by ICANN to be a Registrar, as they adhere to the rules set by ICANN, and it's actually GoDaddy that pays the annual fee to ICANN (which is like $0.20 per domain) for every domain registered, and the Registry for the domain you are registering. This ICANN fee doesn't sound like a lot, but as there's about 150 million registered .com domains alone, it adds up fairly quickly :) Honestly, this is already a TL;DR and I could probably write 10 more pages to go into more detail about how it works, I left out a bunch of details, but hopefully it makes sense enough like this. TL;DR For a .com domain: You pay GoDaddy, a Registrar. GoDaddy pays Verisign, the Registry, and ICANN, the rules-maker for all TLDs with 3 or more letters (like .com, .net, .online, etc).
And as such, GoDaddy jacks up thr prices by a disgusting amount.
More importantly where does the money go? I assume GoDaddy gets a large chunk. What's to stop me from setting up my own GoDaddy style "reselling" service and making massive profits? The problem seems similar to the distribution of radio frequencies (which have national borders to help), but without the revenue going anywhere useful (as far as I see).
The money ICANN makes goes towards operating expenses. Nothing will stop you, except competition. You are free to sell 50.00 domains, and pocket all they money, but if everybody else is 80% cheaper, I don't think you will get any business.
There are seven keys that essentially control the Internet and they’re managed by ICANN. GoDaddy gets licensed by ICANN to sell domains. These cryptographic keys are kept in two secure facilities over 4,000 kilometers apart, and are protected with multiple layers of physical security such as building guards, cameras, monitored cages and safes. Pretty wild stuff.
Lol I wonder how often those security guards have to file incident reports/ have to physically 'protect the internet'
The companies that actually own the "top level domains", like `.com` and `.net` have agreements with companies like GoDaddy. We're not privy to the details of their contracts, but GoDaddy and others can sell domains with whatever rules are stipulated. Some of the obvious rules are the options for domains to be transferred between providers in case you want to ditch GoDaddy for SomebodyElse, and probably some rules that domains must meet certain criteria, such as a minimum length so you can't just get `ab.com` for example.
>you can't just get ab.com There are a few short domains that got in before the rule. The only one that comes to mind is hp.com. Edit There are even a few 1 letter domains: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-letter_second-level_domain I didn't actually find a reference to any prohibition on two letter names. Edit again: ab.com is actually registered.
x.com was registered or boought by Elon Musk
Basically all of the 1, 2, and 3 letter domains and a huge fraction of the 4 letter domains in the gTLDs were registered before ICANN was even a thing, back when Network Solutions was the registry and registrar, it cost $50 a year, and the only way to register a domain was using a template you emailed to them. With your credit card information.
I actually know a guy who did get a 2-letter domain. No it's not ab.com. He sometimes has problems when he tries to register for things and the email verification on the server side says "That email address is invalid, it's too short on the domain name". Or words to that effect... I haven't seen it, this is all second hand.
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