Re: domain registra question

[Eric Brunner-Williams <brunner () nic-naa net>]

Deric,

I run a small registrar, and I'm the CTO (confused, tired and 
overworked) of a medium sized registrar, which as it happens does 
offer the "how to become a registrar" as a consultancy product.

There are a number of procedural steps to take to obtain "ICANN 
accreditation".

At that point you have two choices, stop and "rent your threads" to a 
back-order specialist, or continue and build or acquire a registrar 
"system" capable of passing OT&E at the ICANN accredited registries of 
your choice.

The former "rent your threads" used to pay rather handsomely, but with 
some 600 shell registrars dividing up the value, the pay out now is 
slightly more than what ICANN accreditation costs.

The later "build or buy and operate" is something you could be doing 
now, as a reseller of a registrar which has a reseller-model. Not to 
advertise, but the medium sized registrar for which I'm the CTO has a 
member model, and its members act as registrars, though in fact it is 
only the membership association which holds the ICANN accreditation 
(though in fact several member companies, such as mine, also hold 
ICANN accreditation in their own right).

You have several choices if you "buy". There are "registrar in a can" 
vendors. You also have several choices if you "build", every registry 
provides an EPP kit for registrars (it is in their self-interest), and 
as an added feature (or bug) there are registry-specific "extensions", 
different versions of the same kit, and so on.

I am, at the moment, reviewing the refactoring task for a registrar 
which supports every ICANN generic and sponsored TLDs, and about a 
dozen country-code registries.

For many, the money is in COM/NET/ORG, though in Asia the ASIA product 
may be as important.

Then there is the market, yours as a hosting provider, and ICANN's as 
a set of contracts creating 20 registries, some of which are of very 
limited interest, and 900 registrars, more than 2/3rds of which are 
shell registrars, exist.

You'll be paying $0.20 per domain name year to ICANN, and $6 
(approximately) to the registries (COM/NET, ORG/INFO, BIZ), and your 
margin will be something in excess of that ... or not. Some registrars 
sell domains at a loss (actually below registry+ICANN cost, and some 
merely below their cost), making their margin on hosting or other 
services.

Half of all registration is done by five registrars, it is a highly 
concentrated industry, and credit card fraud (charge backs) are a 
problem for the registrars who accept credit card data as payment.

Good luck!
Eric

On 1/30/10 9:50 AM, Deric Kwok wrote:
> Hi
>
> Thank you so much
>
> Do we need to setup any application for processing?
>
> I don't understand this whols. ls it serve?
>
> Thank you again
>
> On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 9:22 AM, hutuworm<hutuworm () gmail com>  wrote:
>
> > You may want to check the Registrar Tasks section at
> > http://www.icann.org/en/processes/
> >
> >   *Registrar Tasks*
> >
> >     - Registrar Accrediation Process<http://www.icann.org/en/processes/registrars/raa-process-17feb09-en.pdf>  [PDF,
> >     16K]
> >     - Registrar Accreditation Agreement Renewal 
> > Process<http://www.icann.org/en/processes/registrars/raa-renewal-process-18feb09-en.pdf>  [PDF,
> >     16K]
> >     - Assignment Process<http://www.icann.org/en/processes/registrars/assignment-process-17feb09-en.pdf>  [PDF,
> >     16K]
> >     - Adding a gTLD Appendix<http://www.icann.org/en/processes/registrars/adding-gtld-appendix-17feb09-en.pdf>  [PDF,
> >     12K]
> >     - ICANN Procedure for Handling Conflicts with Privacy 
> > Law<http://www.icann.org/en/processes/icann-procedure-17jan08.htm>
> >     - De-Accredited Registrar Transition 
> > Procedure<http://www.icann.org/en/processes/registrars/de-accredited-registrar-transition-procedure-01oct08.pdf>  [PDF,
> >     121K]
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 10:07 PM, Deric Kwok<deric.kwok2000 () gmail com>wrote:
> >
> > > Hi
> > >
> > > We are doing hosting and
> > >
> > > We are interested in doing Domain registra
> > >
> > > Could you provide more info?
> > >
> > > Thank you