Selecting a Corporate Registrar is a hard thing to do, service, price, ccTLD covered, accreditations, knowledge, information, security… It is even harder if your plan is to have your brand protected in Cuba, Iran or Sudan.

What about the "RIGHT" to register a specific domain name?

According to the United States department of the treasury there are regions American Registrars are not authorized to work with. So what does it mean?

According to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/), a brand cannot secure its domain names on the complete range of extensions existing if its Corporate Registrar is American.
 
In its Sanction Programs (http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/regulations/facreg.pdf), the foreign assets control regulations for the corporate registration industry says: "As of October 2004, OFAC administered and enforced comprehensive sanctions programs involving three countries: Cuba, Iran, and Sudan. Unless authorized by OFAC, no U.S. individual or entity can do business with individuals or entities (including government institutions) in those countries, or individuals or entities acting for or on behalf of those countries."

OFAC was kind enough to answer my questions:

"If your registrar is a U.S. company, it is subject to the laws of the United States.  U.S. sanctions regulations prohibit most financial transactions related to Cuba and Iran, including the registration of domain names. Domain names in Burma and Sudan would be subject to these restrictions as well."

Basically speaking, you cannot secure your online brand in Cuba, Iran, Sudan if your Corporate Registrar is American. Thinking about registering yourbrand.CU, yourbrand.IR or yourbrand.SD?

Well, think twice and…take your time. Or call me

More and more Registrars announce partnership to sell expired domain names. To understand how it works, the Registrant (owner) can decide not to renew his domain name.
In this case, it will expire and then, it will go for auctions if his Registrar has settled a partnership. Anyone interested to buy the domain will have to bid.

It does not mean someone will buy the domain at a higher price at all: it is another solution for the Registrar to sell the domain name to someone else and make money instead of just dropping the domain.

Of course, this is more money for the (accredited) Registrar but what is not said here is: what happens when the Registrant forgets to renew his domain name?

I believe the best quality service a registrar can offer is to provide his client “the best service”. What if I am a corporate client with hundreds of domains to manage and, for organization reasons, I can’t auto-renew my domain names?

Well: it becomes here a very risky situation to trust an accredited Registrar who is going to sell my domain name if I forget to renew it, isn’t it?

What it means is: when it comes to renewing your 300 domains and you’re not there that day, most of them can probably be renewed the next day but there’s a chance you will lose one or two in the list.

Think about it

Well it seems there's a person ready to pay the price for an .ASIA domain name and guillon.asia was won for $160. What I really missunderstand...is the use of it: pay-per-click? Why buy guillon.asia such a price for pay-per-click ?

The interesting point here is to see the value of the .com increase. While I am here, I 'm selling and droppping some "guillon" domains. Guillon.ru was dropped recenly an taken as soon as dropped. I start to think it is a good strategy to increase the value of a ".com"

Guillon.asia today (05/23/2008):

Price paid for Guillon.asia: click here for more

Today, 85% of these IPv4 addresses are in use. There should be no left by 2011. It is time to move to IPv6.

Read full OECD report here (PDF)

Winning such patent and declining further comment could say it all:

More after: