registries .is Discussion

[Jens P. Jensen]

Hello,

I have opened this thread for discussions about the ccTLD .is, which has recently got more attention from Domainers world wide. ISNIC is the Registry for .is and I am the CEO. I am happy to answer questions about the TLD .is, participate in discussions as well as place a comment on Ideas from the community.

Jens Pétur Jensen
CEO
ISNIC, the. is Registry
Reykjavik
Iceland.

 

[vanvinh]

Hi,
how much is the registration fee?

 

[mdent]

The registration of a domain confers rights to the use of the domain name according to ISNIC rules at any time but does not confer ownership of the domain.

Some clarification would be nice on this subject

 

[Jens P. Jensen]

A domain name holder (the Registrant) has the right to use the domain for as long as he or she fulfils the ISNIC Domain Rules (General Registry Rules according to RFC's Standards) and pays the yearly fee (continues the subscription). This right to use is defended by ISNIC and by Icelandic law. However someone else could have a higher right to the domain/word/phrase, but would have to have his right recognised by Icelandic law (e.g. by the Court of Reykjavik, by the Icelandic Consumer Agency or by the Board of Appeals which operates independent of ISNIC. Per definition one can't "own" a domain name, but is as a Registrant never the less the "owner" of the rights to use the domain name. This involves the right to use, park, sell or lease the domain.

 

[Jens P. Jensen]

Hi,
how much is the registration fee?

€29.90

 

[Alan Glennon]

Jens -- Welcome! It's great to have the authority on the .is top level domain here at Namepros.

 

[Jens P. Jensen]

Thank you Alan, glad to be here in this nice community.

 

[Elon Swift]

firstly why most of the people have their email ids, hidden or under protection. Also is it free ?

 

[Kate]

A coupon for domainers ?

 

[Kenny]

A coupon for domainers ?

Go Kate

Welcome to NamePros, Jens.

Peace,
Cyberian

 

[Jens P. Jensen]

Go Kate

Welcome to NamePros, Jens.

Peace,
Cyberian

Thank you Cyberian.

>>Coupon for domainers? Good question. Not yet I am afraid, but who knows! ISNIC is new here so we need to understand things a little better before we move for Coupons (and build it into the system .

 

[Jens P. Jensen]

firstly why most of the people have their email ids, hidden or under protection. Also is it free ?

is what free Elon?

 

[Hypersot]

is what free Elon?

Probably he's talking about privacy and if it's free to enable when registering an .is domain

 

[Jens P. Jensen]

oh yes, the option "Address with held" is free (of course) but name and country of Registrant appears in our public Whois.

 

[noonoo1]

Hi Jens,

Welcome to namepros, I did register 3 .is domains last year but let them drop as no public sales since 2015

Would like to see the Chinese market take on .is

 

[Casey L]

Do you have any tools to view expired .is domains?

 

[Jens P. Jensen]

Hi Jens,

Welcome to namepros, I did register 3 .is domains last year but let them drop as no public sales since 2015

Would like to see the Chinese market take on .is[/QUOT

Do you have any tools to view expired .is domains?

Thank you for the question. I am sorry, no, but this question keeps coming up. Many years ago you could subscribe to the delete list at ISNIC, but the Registry was forced to stop the service do to many complaints from Registrants that had "lost" their domains (because of stupidity). I guess this would no longer be an issue? Let me check this out within the Registry along with Kate's Idea of Coupons.

 

[HotKey]

Hi Jens, and welcome to NP- nice to see you on here.

I've held an account at ISNIC for a number of years now, and have found the enforcement of your domain name policies very very strict, in particular external nameserver delagtion. If there is any deviation whatsoever from your RFC5966 and RFC1912, there is danger of this:

ISNIC periodically checks domains in the .IS zone for compliance with these requirements, and informs the domain contacts should their domain fail. Domains that consistently fail to comply will be suspended (i.e. removed from the .IS zone file) until their technical setup is fixed. Please note that domains are deleted if they are left suspended for more than 60 days.

This is a message I have received on a number of occasions, and had been forced to move nameservers from a popular DNS service such as Namecheap, to a more obscure one, for example, just so I don't risk losing my name. This does not instill confidence that registering a name through ISNIC is a safe thing. I remember having to test a number of DNS companies before finding one or two that saitisfied the ISNIC requirements.

This would not be an issue for your users if you considered more DNS options than basic forwarding from your site.

oh yes, the option "Address with held" is free (of course) but name and country of Registrant appears in our public Whois.

Yes but email address is also displayed. This wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that the displayed email address is ALSO the ISNIC account address. IMO this is a security concern. You should consider an option of allowing us to have a different contact email for our .is domains rather than the account login one.

 

[anantj]

Hi Jen,

Welcome to Namepros. I have a .IS domain registered. However, I've found your interface to be extremely confusing and difficult to use. The documentation is not very clear with a lot of potential questions unanswered. Any chance your team could take a look at it?

At the minimum, having better documentation and/or common terms and references that are already used elsewhere being used on your system/interface would be of great help.

For example, even to use and/or change nameservers is not easy. I've tried and given up several times because I did it early during the registration of my domain and now I don't remember.

Also, to give credit where it's due, the support was extremely responsive and responded to my queries in less than 24 hours (which is great given timezone differences).

 

[Kate]

DNS servers that do not comply with the technical requirements will be rejected. .is not a special case, .de is also famous for being strict on DNS, and other ccTLDs too. Many parking DNS do not fulfill the requirements (at least two NS on separate subnets).

Using a third party DNS is usually a good idea, to depend less on the registrar, to avoid interruption of service while transferring the domain name to another registrar, and for added redundancy.
Some free services will do the job. Example: dns.he.net

 

[HotKey]

DNS servers that do not comply with the technical requirements will be rejected. .is not a special case, .de is also famous for being strict on DNS, and other ccTLDs too. Many parking DNS do not fulfill the requirements (at least two NS on separate subnets).

Using a third party DNS is usually a good idea, to depend less on the registrar, to avoid interruption of service while transferring the domain name to another registrar, and for added redundancy.
Some free services will do the job. Example: dns.he.net

Yes but the onus is on us, as users, to seek out and find this adherence. This makes it difficult to manage .is domains at Isnic, which is a turn-off to registering them. There could be usability improvments, and I think it's worth it for the registry to consider some. Dot-is is a great extension.

 

[HotKey]

Also, to give credit where it's due, the support was extremely responsive and responded to my queries in less than 24 hours (which is great given timezone differences).

This is true.

 

[Jens P. Jensen]

Thank you all so much everybody for very good comments and suggestions. I will discuss them at our next Friday-Afternoon staff-meeting (after having had some beer .

Please understand that ISNIC is a tiny Registry with only 60.000 domains and nine (9) employees. We are also different in the way that we allow direct registrations for everyone – something which confuses many of our customers–rightly–they think we are a Registrar, which we are not. But the "glass wall" between Registries and Registrars might be dissolving allowing Registries to provide more service with the domain in very near future.

I'll do my best to have the ISNIC's service and website upgraded. HotKey's comments on not being able to hide the address have been taken seriously. On the other hand all good hosting companies, e.g. Cloudflare.com, have no trouble following ISNIC's (secure and healthy) Tech. Req. for Name Servers.

ISNIC
/Jens.,

 

[Jens P. Jensen]

Hi Jen,

Welcome to Namepros. I have a .IS domain registered. However, I've found your interface to be extremely confusing and difficult to use. The documentation is not very clear with a lot of potential questions unanswered. Any chance your team could take a look at it?

At the minimum, having better documentation and/or common terms and references that are already used elsewhere being used on your system/interface would be of great help.

For example, even to use and/or change nameservers is not easy. I've tried and given up several times because I did it early during the registration of my domain and now I don't remember.

Also, to give credit where it's due, the support was extremely responsive and responded to my queries in less than 24 hours (which is great given timezone differences).

Thanks, did you know you and park or forward your .is domains at ISNIC? It's super simple and free!

 

[anantj]

Thanks, did you know you and park or forward your .is domains at ISNIC? It's super simple and free!

I'm not sure if I understood right I think you are saying I should park my domains at ISNIC. That's definitely a good option though I also prefer to consolidate and forward the domain to either a sales page or an inquiry form to enable inbound inquiries. I don't know if you provide forms or only standard parking with ads.

This is especially useful as whois is not visible which means most inbound inquiries have to be through a contact form.

Thanks again for taking time out to get feedback from us as well as engage in a very constructive discussion. Highly appreciated