Question: I know registering 2nd level domain is a money-maker business, growing every day. What about providing TLDs where people can register their 2nd level domain for free ?

Nominee Replies

Olivier Muron - posted on 2000-10-06 07:32:46 Second level domain names have a cost for registries and registrars. Even if those costs are covered (advertising, ...), free domain names are likely to be reserved by the first comers and after a while no interesting names will be left availaible. Winfried Schueller - posted on 2000-10-02 05:12:09 2nd level domains have to be managed and maintained, therefore you have to pay a fee. 2nd level domains are presently limited to ccTLDs. But this may change in future. I can imagine that a new TLD will be introduced that allows also 2nd level domain registration. If this will be free or if you have to pay a fee is up to the TLD provider (Registry, Registrar) and its business case. Alf Hansen - posted on 2000-09-30 13:48:04 Most of the ccTLDs I know about, are non-commercial, but even then they have to charge a fee to cover the cost. The fee to the Registry is normally just a small fraction of what a Registrant has to pay to the Registrar for a domain name. Customer handling is expensive because the Registrar must spend time to explain a lot of things to the Registrants. I do not think it is a good idea to have TLD Registries offering their services for free. TLD Registries are in a special situation (monopoly-like) and should be not-for-profit and do at little as possible. You know that some service providers offer e-mail services and WEB pages for free. In the same way there may be Registrars (for-profit) that will offer to register domain names for free. But remember: There is no free lunch. Someone is paying (Advertising) and you as the customer have to live with their conditions. Jeanette Hofmann - posted on 2000-09-30 11:44:33 It would be of course possible to give away domain names free of charge. Operating a TLD registry does cost money though. Who would bear the costs for maintaining the whois database, the name server etc? Perhaps it would be more realistic to offer domain names at cost price? In any case, the business model should be at the registrar's disposition. However, ICANN's decision to charge applicants for new TLDs a $ 50.000 fee does more or less exclude all non-profit organizations from the registry business.