Registrars and three-letter domains

[Living Media]

Hi all,

I was trying to register a three-letter domain name, and the registrar kept spitting back "invalid domain name format" error messages. I own a three-letter .com, so I know that they are allowed, at least for some extensions. Does anyone know if three-letter domains are disallowed for the .ws extension?

[nameslave]

For .ws, you may check out http://www.website.ws for more info. From my memory, they allow 3-letter's ... hardly any registry would disallow that?!

[Living Media]

Well this is interesting. Check out this wording from website.ws:

Pricing:
Standard domains ( 4+ characters )

They've got the price for three-letter domains hiked up. Somehow, I don't think my client is going to want to pay $500 for the domain they want.

[Living Media]

Okay, this is interesting:

I tried Godaddy. I tried enom. I tried register.com. I even tried *shudder* NetSol. They all either said "invalid domain name syntax" or, in NetSol's case, said "Go to www.ws to register this premium name."

Meh.

What the fig is a "premium domain"? Is this some ICANN designation, or just some other bit of oddness?

[Robert]

.WS is a country code domain so it does not fall under the authority of ICANN. WebSite.WS is the Registry for the .WS domain, and operates under a long term contract with the island of (Western) Samoa.


4+ character $35/yr

3 Character Domains $500/yr

2 Character Domains $1000/yr

1 Character Domains $50K/yr

[nameslave]

LOL! They allow that, it just costs you an arm and a leg ... very much like .tv! :D

[nameslave]

Originally posted by Robert:

.WS is a country code domain so it does not fall under the authority of ICANN.
http://www.icann.org/cctlds/

[Robert]

Originally posted by nameslave:

http://www.icann.org/cctlds/

http://website.ws/faq/questions_ws.dhtml#ICANN

Is .WS recognized and accreditee by ICANN?

.WS is a country code domain so it does not fall under the authority of ICANN. WebSite.WS is the Registry for the .WS domain, and operates under a long term contract with the island of (Western) Samoa.

[Chicken]

Originally posted by nameslave:

LOL! They allow that, it just costs you an arm and a leg ... very much like .tv! :D
Yep, the registrars (or in this case the registry) is just taking a bigger piece before the domain speculators do, heh. .st is the same way ($1,000 for a two letter).

[Living Media]

nameslave, thanks for the additional information and the URL. More research-URLs are (almost) always a good thing.

I was able to pass the information along, and to modify my site's text to include the disclaimer about three-letter .ws domains.

[nameslave]

Don't even mention it, Living Media. Actually, the relationships between ICANN and ccTLDs are very complicated to say the least. There have been disputes, agreements and stand-off's; some interesting background reading could be found at http://www.icannwatch.org and http://www.lextext.com/icann/.

[Living Media]

Eh...so it's like a Dysfunctional Family Thanksgiving without the turkey and mashed potatoes? :D

I do remember reading up on the history of the .com.au kerfuffle, because one of my clients kept getting mail intended for a .com.au recipient. People would forget the second part of the domain extension all the time. It drove him nuts. I finally advised him not to be so polite any more: write to the domain owners, tell them to pass along the word that misdirected emails would no longer be forwarded, and that if they sent another contract to the wrong email address, it would not be my clients' fault if the contract didn't get delivered to the proper parties. Funny, emails seemed to start being properly addressed after that...

[markblair]

Just to clarify, .ws is not a country code TLD. Last I read, .ws stands for website.

[Robert]

Originally posted by markblair:

Just to clarify, .ws is not a country code TLD. Last I read, .ws stands for website.

It says it on their website that it is a country TLD.

[markblair]

Hmmm, well this is why I was confused. This comes from Dotster's website:

.ws domain names are an excellent alternative to the popular .com, .net and .org domains. Since .ws is promoted as Web site, an address with this extension is easy to remember and suits any type of Web site.

It is listed as a country code TLD there but with it saying "Web Site" that threw me off. I wonder what country that is for or maybe they just classify many under cctld?

[Incognito]

promoted as Web Site...

But, that doesn't change the fact that it is a country, Western Samoa.

[Chicken]

Originally posted by markblair:

Just to clarify, .ws is not a country code TLD. Last I read, .ws stands for website.
This post tells you that their marketing dept. is doing a good job. :D

[Living Media]

They had to do something in terms of marketing that extension. .ws has kind of an unusual pronounciation.

.com = pronounced "com"
.net = pronounced "net"
.org = pronounced "org"
.ws = pronounced...."wuss"

[Robert]

Originally posted by markblair:



It is listed as a country code TLD there but with it saying "Web Site" that threw me off. I wonder what country that is for or maybe they just classify many under cctld?


island of (Western) Samoa (.ws)

[Chicken]

Originally posted by Living Media:

.ws = pronounced...."wuss"
Yeeeew, never even thought of that. Hmmmm...
Scribehost dot wuss

Nope, that surely sounds gay, not that there's anything wrong with that (credit: Seinfeld). Maybe iama.ws or yourmommaisa.ws or I don't know. It's dumb.

I do have one .info which isn't all that great, and a .bz (which I really didn't want but it was the only one left for the domain I wanted, chicken.bz, stupid I know).

You: "Chicken dot bzzzzz."
Them: "dot bizzz? dot buzzzz"
You: "No bzzzz, just b - z."

Too much work...

[nameslave]

Originally posted by Chicken:

This post tells you that their marketing dept. is doing a good job. :D
EXACTLY. .la, for example, has been marketing themselves as the TLD for LA (Los Angeles; home to 300,000 registered businesses and 10 million citizens) instead of Lao People's Democratic Republic which has a population of just over 5 million.

[markblair]

Dagnabit... Stinkin' registrars. Well, I can safely say I don't own any .ws domains. They may have fooled me in what I thought of it but it didn't get me enough to actually buy one. Unlike .info which thankfully will expire in September.

[nameslave]

Originally posted by nameslave:

Actually, the relationships between ICANN and ccTLDs are very complicated to say the least. There have been disputes, agreements and stand-off's ...
Here's another interesting article, "Can ICANN meet the needs of "less developed" countries (http://dfn.org/news/internet/icann-ldc.htm)?"