[ELI5] How do domains get bought/sold. What happens if no one previously owned the domain, and how do companies like GoDaddy have access to what seems like every domain out there
In: Technology
To add to what was previously posted (and somewhat oversimplifying, as some extensions are handled differently):
If a domain is not registered, you can register it.
If a domain *is* registered, the registrant can sell the rights to it. There are many domain investors who buy and sell the rights to domains. Pretty much all domains with obvious value — common words and phrases, short sequences of letters and/or numbers, especially in the .com extension — have been registered for many years.
At the end of the day, each major name in the DNS hierarchy… the `com`, the `net`, the `org` and all those… each are owned and run by 1 company who manages the internet’s DNS server needs for them, among other needs. However especially for those big names, registration is handled by many companies under them who can register and manage the names. If you were to try registering “reddit.com” with one of them, they will go to the `com` owner to see if it’s free, and if so claim it on your behalf and put your ownership and settings into it… for a fee of course.
But godaddy can’t register them all. Many have stricter requirements set by their owners… especially the 2-letter names which are country codes.. For example, `it` is Italy, `de` is Germany, etc. While it varies, some may have rules that you need to be a citizen or suitably registered company for one of those names, among other rules. And a random person definitely can’t get a `gov` domain.
These registrar weasels like GoDaddy do a trick that should be banned: instead of releasing expired domains back into the pool, they hang on to them themselves and try to sell them off at exploitative prices.
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