Why domain name services are not all equal

Wendy — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:47:00 +0100

We believe in domain ethics – your domain is more than just a name, it’s your online presence, your company, profile or project. It should be protected and you should get what you want and what you expect with no tricks. But, you say, surely all domain names are the same? Why should it matter who you buy a domain from as they all come from the same place anyway, right? Well no, unfortunately that’s not true. There are many reasons why different domain providers offer better or worse deals, and it's not just price.

Not all domain offers are what they seem. Different domain name providers allow you to do different things with your domain. Some have service restrictions and sneaky pricing. It's not just the restrictions on the domain that can be limiting, it's the little surprises you might find out after you've paid. Sometimes you only find out about a bad deal once you've been caught by it, but we've put together a list of a few things to watch out for in the tricky domain market.

1. Sneaky pricing - Different pricing for register (buy now £0.99 per year!) and renewal (oops it costs more next year) - Different pricing for transfers out (oh, you want to leave, that'll be £xx) - The cost of a .co.uk at the registry is £2.50 per year. Companies selling below this have an ulterior motive!

2. Service restrictions - Can't get full DNS control - pay more for additional services

3. Front running/'sniffing' - Using your domain search data to buy domains before you do, or selling your domain search data. More references.

4. Account lockins - Locking your account for a period following changes, prevents transfer outs. More by Slashdot.

5. Domain ownership - Not the owner of your domain, some companies buy it on your behalf and then rent it to you.

6. Privacy - Selling your whois data/customer data

Gandi offers full DNS control, no sneaky pricing, no front running and no account lock ins. Our prices are fair, but profitable, so we have no incentive to constantly upsell things you don't need and bombard you with marketing messages. As one of our customers Miconian writes, ‘I used to see gandi as a discount registrar, but I now see them as offering a premium service: the implicit agreement to leave me the hell alone and let me register my domains in peace.’ We make sure you own your domain, this was one of the early reasons for Gandi's success. We do not sell your data and offer protection from whois spam and the ability to hide personal details.

We talk about domain ethics but do we follow through? We think so but what do you think?

Gandi UK Team

Have a read of this follow up article talking about other dodgy registrar practices.

Who is Gandi and why should I care about them?

Wendy — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:32:00 +0100

Ah a good question. Who is this strange and wonderful French domain registrar and hosting provider, and why should I believe they are wonderful? What does it mean to believe in domain name ethics? Well to understand Gandi you have to go back to the very beginning...

You see Gandi was founded out of the desire to create free and fair access to homes on the internet; your address, your domain name. Back in the murky days of 1999 the AFNIC (controllers of the .fr domain) had restrictions on selling .fr's, so that only companies and trademark holders could own them. This meant the average French individual could not buy one, so instead they bought the GTLDs, e.g. .com or .net.

But in those days the GTLDs were sold by an exclusive group of mainly US registrars, at reasonably punchy prices (some still sell for $35+ per year) and with some unsavoury terms (more about that later). The original founders of Gandi set about creating a registrar that was for everyone, that encouraged domain ownership, made it affordable and accessible.

Gandi became one of the first ICANN accredited domain registrar when it was opened up to new companies in 1999, and helped pioneer the domain market we have today.

Gandi slashed the price of domain names, selling at a fixed €12 price (only a small mark-up on the registry cost, and not a lot in 1999 when the Euro was worth less than a Dollar), so that it was more accessible to a wider audience.

And more importantly Gandi setup its terms and conditions so that the domain buyer was made the 'owner' of the domain, and not the registrar. This may sound very obvious (why wouldn't the person paying be the owner?) but was actually unusual back then. Instead domain registrars would often take your money, put the domain name in their own name, and then lease it to you. So you might find out a few years later when you wanted to leave that you didn't actually own the domain name at all, despite paying for it. Very dodgy.

But not Gandi. With Gandi you were always the owner of your domain, and this was a very important reason why Gandi developed a strong following in Europe and the US. For those that read the legal agreements and were passionate about how it 'should be', they found Gandi and stayed with us.

Nearly 10 years later, this hasn't changed. Gandi was bought in 2005, by an experienced team of internet entrepreneurs, Stephan Ramoin, CEO, Joe White, CFO/COO and Eirik Pettersen, CTO who had always believed in fairness, transparency and innovative, products and services on the internet. Gandi continues to push for a fairer approach to domain buying and selling, and customer led products and services. We take a stand against spammers, domain squatters, and dodgy practices in the industry. We build great products for you to buy or not as you choose. We don't spend money on advertising, instead we prefer that our customers are our advocates. If you don't believe in our services, we shouldn't be selling them!

We believe your domain is more than just a name but your online presence on the internet whether it’s a home for your business, project or profile. And as such should be supported and protected. We intend to provide an alternative set of products which support you to do this. As many of you know we released our revolutionary virtualised hosting product recently for our tech savvy customers and we will be launching tools for customers who want build well designed, hosted websites easily and quickly very soon.

So there you have it. Gandi was founded on the principle of providing services 'as they should be', honest, fair, reasonably priced and with your interests at heart. We welcome you to join us and make your home with us online. Viva l'internet!

(For those of you interested in a bit of net history, click here, an article written in 2000 looking at domain providers legal contracts. Network solutions was given a 1 out of 5 rating for the fairness of its contract, while Gandi was given 5 stars - "Three registrars currently enjoy a perfect five-star legal rating. Contracts with these companies tend to favor consumers. For example, a Paris-based registrar named Gandi.net states clearly in its agreement: "The client owns the registered domain name." Also, the firm can't change its contracts at will, except for fee changes.")

Gandi UK Team

Gandi Bar - Domain name ethics

Why domain name services are not all equal

Who is Gandi and why should I care about them?