you know how you can go to many many websites and buy/register a domain name? well, where do THEY get them from? i mean, there must be one controlling source of all these domain names where all of them are registered from, otherwise there would be duplicates and such (if two people regsitered the same name at nearly the same time). i searched on google, but it only returns resellers (register.com, and all those), and of course some company that makes money off it isn''t going to give me their supplier''s contact info! thanks in advance.

thanks, i will check out that site.

but, IP addresses are not necessarily constant (even with a cable modem, they change every once in a while), and aren''t automatically linked to a domain name. i have a vague idea about DNS servers and such, but as far as i can tell they communicate with each other to get updates about which domain name goes with which IP.

i still need to know about the central place where the domain names are registered and sent out to the DNS servers. maybe this is premature and that site will help.

It depends on what top-level domain you are registering a name in. For .com/.net/.org there's a central registry controlled by ICANN. In order to get access to this registry, you need to be an accredited registrar with ICANN - which is complex and expensive enough to only be worthwhile for larger organisations. Registrars pay a fee per domain name (a bit more than 6 US dollars per year, IIRC) which is used for the management of the registry, among other things.

The companies allowing you to register domain names are either registrars or reselling registrar services. Obviously they need to add a few dollars to cover their costs for registration and bundled services, so about 10 dollars per year is a fair retail price (at least that's what I'm selling domain names for).

[edited by - spock on November 13, 2003 12:13:06 PM]

yah, i found the ICANN website through a link on the RIPE website, so thanks to both of you!

alas, it is much more complex and expensive than one would expect from a warning on a message board

heh, so much for finding a way around paying resellers for a handful of domain names