CentralNic
http://www.centralnic.com/

What do folks think of CentralNic "domains", and what is known about this company and its history. I registered one domain with them last year, but ::: shrug ::: dunno. I'm thinking it doesn't show up high on my radar, but its an interesting option for branding.

Extensions:
br.com Brazil £65.00
cn.com China £65.00
de.com Germany £65.00
eu.com Europe £65.00
gb.com Great Britain £65.00
gb.net Great Britain £65.00
hu.com Hungary £65.00
no.com Norway £65.00
qc.com Quebec £65.00
ru.com Russian Federation £65.00
sa.com Saudi Arabia £65.00
se.com Sweden £65.00
se.net Sweden £65.00
uk.com United Kingdom £65.00
uk.net United Kingdom £65.00
us.com United States £65.00
uy.com Uruguay £65.00
za.com South Africa £65.00

I was reading this thread about a brown-out on the uk side:
http://www.domainstate.com/showthrea...=&threadid=897

Then I read this one about the decision that UDRP doesn't apply to the .EU.COM domains.
http://www.domainstate.com/showthrea...ght=centralnic

What say you all? Are these even half way interesting to use?

~ Nexus

I wish they were more open in explaining to people that they are not really cctld's and that there is a weak point (the actual gtld domain registration itself).

cctld's are protected, subdomains aren't.

In light of recent talk regarding New.net, I'm curious, does anyone here have any names registered at CentralNic?

~ Nexus

The price needs a serious adjustment.

Plus there's the risk that if someone manages to get their domain via UDRP or another fascist piece of legislation, their entire customer base gets bushwhacked.

Always makes me wonder. Considering CNET got COM.COM, I wonder how much latitude they feel they have with their subdomains. Can you get UDRP'd on account of the sub-domains you choose to have? Was the whole 2 letter domain ban directly related to CentralNic? I thought I remember problems they had regarding uk.com?

Heh, heh... makes me wonder about ORG.ORG and NET.NET too...

~ Nexus

what is known about this company and its history.

I've worked for Centralnic since Feb, 2001. They were formerly known as Nomination and began to sell sub-domains of uk.com back in 1996. In 2000, they aquired the others and changed their name to Centralnic. We operate a robust, private registry/registrar system and have done so consistently since we started. You can read more at our site about our history.

The price needs a serious adjustment.

Hey Drewbert, I thought you were my friend. Just kidding. In either event, our prices have come down some. We are always looking at that.

I wish they were more open in explaining to people that they are not really cctld's

We're pretty clear about that at our site. Honestly, we feel that we have just as much a right to market these as "country-specific domains" as anyone. I really don't think that most registrants care or even know what "ccTld" means. That is industry jargon. Of course, that's my opinion.

Look at how many people register email addresses at AOL. Does AOL have to specify clearly that AOL is not a ccTLD and that if AOL changes their name or goes out of business, that their customers will lose their email address? Look at what happened to all the @Home.com customers. Not a good thing, but the world didn't end.

So if someone can have the right to sell or offer an email address, why should Centralnic not have the right to sell or offer sub-domains? Especially considering that we stand on a six year + record of consistency and good business practices. It's simply a business decision to register one of our domains and there are inherent risks associated with any domain that we register.

A year or two ago, the Columbian domain (cctld) dumped every one of their registrants. Why are ccTlds really any safer? Most of these countries are less safe than Centralnic.

Can you get UDRP'd on account of the sub-domains you choose to have?

We have an agreement with WIPO and we have a full UDRP process posted at our site, in cooperation with WIPO.

Was the whole 2 letter domain ban directly related to CentralNic?

Actually, I think it was, but not because of anything that was wrong with the idea. Centralnic was specifically mentioned in a detailed report that was produced by WIPO when comments were being taken on new domains and procedures.

In fact, I think that Centralnic has proven how valuable these two-letter, country-specific domains can be. It's my view that ICANN's actions related to reserving these types of domains further validates their usefulness.

I thought I remember problems they had regarding uk.com?

I've been with Centralnic for three years. UK.COM is our most popular domain (still is, but I don't think for long, now that US.COM is becoming available at larger registrars). I'm not aware of any problems out of the ordinary.

Lastly, I don't come to domainstate real often, but I appreciate the intelligent, mature discussion that I'm seeing here. I despise emotional, immature, and silly outbursts that are common place at many domain forums. Great forum here

Best Regards,

Joe

Hi Joe,

Look at how many people register email addresses at AOL. Does AOL have to specify clearly that AOL is not a ccTLD and that if AOL changes their name or goes out of business, that their customers will lose their email address? Look at what happened to all the @Home.com customers. Not a good thing, but the world didn't end.

Your argument falls downs slightly on this one in that AOL don't sell their email addresses in a manner that could confuse people into thinking they were buying an email address from a registry. Registries provide protection to the registrant (at least in our corner of the world) - in the event that the registrar goes bust the registry is there to provide the buffer.

I know its not exactly the same, but look at what happened with the uk.co subdomaining reseller when they could not agree terms with columbia to renew the contract and all the users of the .uk.co subdomains found out the hard way that there is no protection for subdomains.

If at some point the wind changed direction and geographical names become subject to a revised udrp (something I am sure you're aware has been tried a few times to bring in) then its going to cause a problem. Of course this is by no means a certainty - but it is a difference between a registry domain (ie one which is delegated at root level) and a subdomain that is delegated below a "normal" domain registration. The thing with geographical is all it would take is some bright spark to determine that it is a security matter for countries to not have control of their domain in .com and all of a sudden the odds would shift.

Not trying to scare monger with this, but it is something that should be in the mind of domainers (the focus of this site) if they're thinking long term speculation.

The pricing of the centralnic domains certainly seems heavy in the face of competition from registry delivered tld's - not sure if you guys have done work on supply/demand at various pricepoints and determined that this ones provides the best revenue return for you but compared to the usual sub $10 reges in just about all the other major tld's its hard to swallow the pricetag on these given the inherent problems they have (like natural bleed to .co.uk and .com due to them being non standard).

I still think the centralnic site is unclear as to exactly what is being offered though - just calling them "alternative domain names" doesn't really clarify what people are buying. I would think "an alternative to official domain names" would be more accurate and clearer.

Having said all this, I think the actual idea of getting those 2 letter country domains and offering a service like this is something many people would seriously think about selling their granny on ebay to finance

Originally posted by joezeppy
I've been with Centralnic for three years. UK.COM is our most popular domain (still is, but I don't think for long, now that US.COM is becoming available at larger registrars). I'm not aware of any problems out of the ordinary.

I linked up top, to a mention of the incident on this website, back in November 2002. CentralNic's official statement on the issue is quoted in the third post of that thread.

http://www.domainstate.com/showthrea...=&threadid=897

The thread ends in easy banter. Thanks for posting joez. I had the same argument, but "service added" isn't the same as "service purchased" (AOL addresses come "free" with your net connection). A better comparison would be that WEB.COM offers dot-WEB.COM domain names from their website for $4.95. Any domain search from their website ends in a suggestion of a dot-WEB.COM address along with all the others they offer.

I just got some CentralNic renewal slips in the mail, so I'm still thinking it over. Other extensions to review as well. I've only been using them as "back-ups" to registered names in other exensions.

Originally posted by safesys
I know its not exactly the same, but look at what happened with the uk.co subdomaining reseller when they could not agree terms with columbia to renew the contract and all the users of the .uk.co subdomains found out the hard way that there is no protection for subdomains.

The Verisign "brown-out" incident is probably the clearest example. I was concerned also regarding the decision to remove all 1 and 2 letter domain names from the "pool" of legally registerable names. I can't remember if that was COM/NET/ORG, but it suggests a concern by ICANN regarding the usage of these and what it spells for the Internet infrastructure in the future.

~ Nexus

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your objective views. Here are my thoughts in response, first to safesys...

Your argument falls downs slightly on this one in that AOL don't sell their e-mail addresses in a manner that could confuse people into thinking they were buying an e-mail address from a registry.

I see your point here. I get a little over enthusiastic periodically. However, I don't see a lot of difference in a customer trusting their ISP for an e-mail address (after all AOL is just a glorified and very large ISP) and trusting us for a similar service which includes their own very cool sub-domain.

Registries provide protection to the registrant (at least in our corner of the world) - in the event that the registrar goes bust the registry is there to provide the buffer.

True, registries have an inherent and somewhat predictable cash flow that would attract almost any buyer interested in the business. I don't see guarantees on any front quite frankly. Ours may be less of a guarantee, but I think still quite reliable and with a good strong track record, better in many cases than some country code operators.

I know its not exactly the same, but look at what happened with the uk.co subdomaining reseller when they could not agree terms with Columbia to renew the contract and all the users of the .uk.co subdomains found out the hard way that there is no protection for subdomains.

That's a good example... Think of many of these ICANN Accredited registry names like .co... Let's face it, most of the rights to those domains were handed out to the first person from a country that showed up to one of Jon Postel's technology meetings. A lot of that stuff is still being sorted out. Centralnic can certainly can be trusted more than many of these third world country code operators. At least we operate within a stable legal base in a civilized country.

If at some point the wind changed direction and geographical names become subject to a revised udrp (something I am sure you're aware has been tried a few times to bring in) then its going to cause a problem. Of course this is by no means a certainty - but it is a difference between a registry domain (ie one which is delegated at root level) and a subdomain that is delegated below a "normal" domain registration. The thing with geographical is all it would take is some bright spark to determine that it is a security matter for countries to not have control of their domain in .com and all of a sudden the odds would shift.

I agree with you here and I make no claims about their type-in value or their value on the after-market. These things should be in the mind of domainers.

But realistically, taking away these domains from Centralnic is just not going to happen. The legal jurisdiction for geographical dot.coms and dot.nets is in the U.S. I'd like to see someone(government or other) try to take our domains from us without touching every other geographic domain and abbreviation for such countries in existence. They'd have to justify why they aren't taking usa.com, usa.net, usa.org, america.com, america.net, america.org, california.com, net, and so forth and so one for who knows how long. Where would it end? This is just not going to happen and is an unrealistic argument (at least in a free country).

The pricing of the Centralnic domains certainly seems heavy in the face of competition from registry delivered tld's - not sure if you guys have done work on supply/demand at various price points and determined that this ones provides the best revenue return for you but compared to the usual sub $10 reges in just about all the other major tld's its hard to swallow the pricetag on these given the inherent problems they have (like natural bleed to .co.uk and .com due to them being non standard).

We've done some measuring and have statistics to guide our pricing policy. It's a difficult area and I do take some heat about our pricing, but we have a profitable business model and we are testing to come up with the right long-term pricing strategy. We are comfortable with our direction for now.

I still think the Centralnic site is unclear as to exactly what is being offered though - just calling them "alternative domain names" doesn't really clarify what people are buying. I would think "an alternative to official domain names" would be more accurate and clearer.

We feel our marketing is correct and we make no untrue claims. A lot of this is just semantics. I have no problem calling our domains "country-specific domain names". I think that is a very accurate description. We acknowledge that there is a set of sanctioned ccTlds and that our domains are alternatives.

Quite frankly, I've been told by many customers that they prefer our country-specific "dot.com" domains to the actual country codes because they have an easier time saying it and their customers are used to domains that end in "dot.com" Most official cctlds don't' As a matter of fact I have no problem branding "us.com" as "America's Dot Com Domain Name". That doesn't bother me at all and I do care about being honest. Even Neustar can't make that claim legitimately (.us).

Think of all the millions of dollars being spent every day by fortune 500 companies advertising domains that end in .com. That helps us and it helps our registrants. Our domains end in .com and no one has to explain to an end user what "US" means. The domains are quite intuitive for a typical end user. And by the way, that typical end user could care less nor does he/she understand the term cc or tld. It means nothing to them. That is industry jargon and has meaning only to insiders. We shouldn't fool ourselves.

Having said all this, I think the actual idea of getting those 2 letter country domains and offering a service like this is something many people would seriously think about selling their granny on ebay to finance

LOL... Thanks for your insightful commentary. I am anxious to participate in intelligent dialogue about Centralnic domains and I appreciate you taking the time to discuss.

Now on to Nexus' comments...

I linked up top, to a mention of the incident on this website, back in November 2002. CentralNic's official statement on the issue is quoted in the third post of that thread.

We have gone through some issues from time to time, mostly due to certain ISPs not configuring their DNS properly. I actually don't recall the incident above (not saying it didn't happen), but I don't consider whatever issues we've had completely out of the ordinary. I mean, there are hundreds of registries around the world. They all have had incidents and in some cases short outages due to whatever. We've operated since 1996 with very minimal disruption. I think we deserve some credit for that accomplishment.

I just got some CentralNic renewal slips in the mail, so I'm still thinking it over. Other extensions to review as well. I've only been using them as "back-ups" to registered names in other extensions.

I hope you will renew them. I'll bet you that if you don't someone will and I don't even know what they are.

look at what happened with the uk.co subdomaining reseller when they could not agree terms with columbia to renew the contract and all the users of the .uk.co subdomains found out the hard way that there is no protection for subdomains. The Verisign "brown-out" incident is probably the clearest example.

See my comments above. Things like that can happen to any registry. I'm sure we haven't seen the last of those kinds of issues at any registries.

I was concerned also regarding the decision to remove all 1 and 2 letter domain names from the "pool" of legally registerable names. I can't remember if that was COM/NET/ORG, but it suggests a concern by ICANN regarding the usage of these and what it spells for the Internet infrastructure in the future.

I believe that ICANN's decision to limit future two-letter, geographic indicators does two things. 1.It is validation of how valuable our usage of these short, two-letter, country-specific, dot.com, domain names are. I think Centralnic uses these domains in their highest and best use. 2. It betters our position and the position of our registrants.

We share (for a price) a valuable commodity with the world rather than keeping it for our little ISP or something (doesn't that sound charitable? LOL).

Again, thanks for the good discussion.

Joe

P.S. Sorry for the long post.

I just registered my second name with CentralNIC through Enom. I would also recommend when registering your name if it's domains.us.com that you register domainsus.com also b/c well let's just say that you'd wished you had if you develop it and it protects your $50 investment somewhat. What happens though when you have a subdomain of a subdomain say for instance biz.domains.us.com could you create such a place or emails with long subdomains like joe@biz.domains.us.com?

Hi clemzonguy,

Thanks for registering your names. You've made some good points.

Regarding the creation of fourth level domains, there is no problem with that. Ask any school teacher and many government workers. They have been using email addresses like that for years with no negative consequence except that they can be longer than typical email addresses.

Many teachers have an email address like:

Firstinitial.LastName@elementary.k12.ca.us

It needs to be arranged and set up through your hosting provider or systems administrator.

See > w . robtex . com/dns/uk.com.html#all < for all the science or process.

Look past the IP #'s that show United Kingdom; and you'll see the servers are in Holland, on RIPE system.

Also, the email (MX) addresses that are related to brand.uk.com are processed by Google Mail.

Curiously, as a "Registrar" of ICANN, they have their own domain names "Registered" with Network Solutions, see the "whois" offered by NS ....

w . networksolutions . com/whois-search/uk.com
w . networksolutions . com/whois-search/centralnic.com

Take some time to "google" them! Also, go to ICANN and search inside there, for CentralNic, Organic Names, etc.

Not really sure how Network Solutions, VeriSign or ICANN let them get away with this cheeky contributory infringement ... I did ask, was told by somebody, that the answers to my questions are 'privileged' .... so I asked elsewhere ...........

Maybe it's here > w . icann . org/en/about/agreements/registries/com <

Or here > w . icann . org/en/resources/registrars/raa/raa-17may01-en.htm <

Or even here > w . icann . org/en/resources/registrars/registrant-rights-responsibilities

Thanks to the internet, it's all public, all available and ready to be read.


Cheers, Graham