Domain name registry

Some governments own their own domain name registries. Some are co-operatives of Internet service providers (such as DENIC) or not-for profit companies (such as Nominet UK). Others operate as commercial organizations, such as the US registry (nic.us), GoDaddy, domain.com, etc. The allocated and assigned domain names are made available by registries by use of the WHOIS or its successor Registration Data Access Protocol and via their domain name servers. Some registries sell the names directly, and others rely on separate entities to sell them. For example, names in the .com top-level domains are in some sense sold "wholesale" at a regulated price by VeriSign, and individual domain name registrars sell names "retail" to businesses and consumers. This retail model has expanded to include platforms like Ionos, Wix, Bluehost, and HostGator, which simplify domain purchasing by acting as accredited registrars for some domains and resellers for others. == Policies ==

Allocation policies Historically, domain name registries operated on a first-come-first-served system of allocation but may reject the allocation of specific domains on the basis of political, religious, historical, legal or cultural reasons. For example, in the United States, between 1996 and 1998, InterNIC automatically rejected domain name applications based on a list of perceived obscenities and sanctioned hate-based domains. However, enforcement was not always consistent. A challenge to this ruling resulted in elimination of the “seven dirty words” policy for registration of US Domain Names based on first amendment grounds. however, Germany's DENIC requires people to use the German civil courts, and Nominet UK deals with intellectual property and other disputes through its own dispute resolution service. == Third-level domains ==

Domain name registries may also impose a system of third-level domains on users. DENIC, the registry for Germany (.de), does not impose third level domains. AFNIC, the registry for France (.fr), has some third level domains, but not all registrants have to use them. Many ccTLDs have moved from compulsory third or fourth-level domain to the availability of registrations of second level domains. Among them are .us (April 2002), .mx (May 2009), .co (March 2010), and .uk (June 2014). == See also ==