I work in this industry and it's a very clear separation between bulk registrars and those that maintain fewer but high value domain names. The latter usually give you a personal contact person to call and work proactively to deal with threats to companies' domain names and trade marks. I don't think I have ever heard of a domain being abruptly suspended by such a registrar.
The cost is usually 5x-10x that of the cheapest registrars so there is naturally a balance to be struck, and as I work in this industry I might be a bit biased. However the damage when waiting on the TTL when registries update NS records sounds very substantial when they first suspend and later restore a domain name in what sound as a very reckless behavior.
Google is a registrar themselves... Do you mean they use someone else for their own domains?
Domain Name: GOOGLE.COM
Registry Domain ID: 2138514_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.markmonitor.com
Registrar URL: http://www.markmonitor.com
Updated Date: 2018-02-21T18:36:40Z
Creation Date: 1997-09-15T04:00:00Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2020-09-14T04:00:00Z
Registrar: MarkMonitor Inc.
Registrar IANA ID: 292
Registrar Abuse Contact Email:
Registrar: Google Inc.
Registrar IANA ID: 895
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: registrar-abuse@google.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.8772376466
Verify yourself at: https://www.iana.org/assignments/registrar-ids/registrar-ids...
Zoho is Zoho Corporation Private Limited IANA ID: 3803
I've always been a bit perplexed as to how registrar's are created. How could I become a registrar?
Any advise or resources to explore this very open question would be wonderful.
Cheers J
"Cloudflare Registrar is the highest level of registrar security. It protects your organization from domain hijacking with high-touch, on and off-line verification of any changes to your Registrar account. Cloudflare is an ICANN accredited registrar providing secure domain registration for high-profile domains."
https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/accreditation-2012-02-...
The cheaper, and easier way, if you're looking to start selling domains with a lower barrier to entry (but less control over how much you pay/how you sell your domains) is to find a white-label reseller registrar.
In all that time of being perplexed, you never thought to do a simple Google search? https://www.google.com/search?q=how+registrar%27s+are+create...
I did some work for a client in 2017 who was starting a cryptocurrency business. This involved buying a domain name for him to transfer to him later.
Well in 2018 there was some internal strife in his business that ended with a lawsuit being started. The opposing party started sending subpoenas to Namecheap asking for all information from 2018 onwards in relation to his account. What ended up happening was they released all of my information about my purchases, domains, personal information(anonymized credit card info, my actual physical address, information about my other unrelated clients domains, etc.)... going back to the start of my account.. several years worth of data prior to 2018. All clearly out of scope of the subpoena they were served.
Not only that, Namecheap never notified me of this.. in violation of their own privacy policy. They're supposed to notify their customers of the release of their information in relation to subpoenas by email or certified mail. Instead I found out much later from my previous client when he was given a copy of all of my information. And presumably his opposing parties in the crypto space were also given all of my information.
Seems kind of messed up to release all of that erroneously, without warning... especially to shady people in the crypto space.. you know, with people getting kidnapped over this stuff.
TL;DR Namecheap will drop your info, even if you paid to protect it as soon as they're given a single demand letter. And they won't stop at just giving up the info that's asked for (with 0 fight and 0 notification to you) there's a chance they'll release ALL of your account information.
Never use namecheap for anything important.
I almost has a domain frozen with namecheap after one warning. If I missed the warning email or checked my email after 24 hours they would have completely suspended my domain. I'm talking about a site with MILLIONS of visitors per month and ten thousands of posts per day, not some small blog.
I repeat don't use namecheap for any meaningful business, especially anything that is "enterprise"
Having a personal contact at the registrar for example might sound unnecessary, but it means that a person at the registrar should know the company involved and the impact of the domain or domains before any serious action like suspension are made. In large and bulk like registrar this isn't the case and as such no one likely knew what Zoho.com was or how many users it would effect. It was likely just an other $10 annual fee among millions of other domains, and as such it is very easy to just suspend and forget and later try fix any issues if those are raised. Cheap and quick solution but very costly if the owner values the domain name above that of $10.
Usually most processes involve some form of capital investment and/or technical capability. Country specific TLD can either be easier or much much harder depending on which country.
* Not really everyone.