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Ask HN: Can you legally own a domain, or only lease?

11 points by patrickw ↗ HN
Gandi.net claims that you actually own, not lease, a domain name you register with them:

http://iwi.gandibar.net/post/2008/10/20/Who-is-Gandi-and-why-should-I-care-about-them

However, Wikipedia:

"...this transaction is termed a sale or lease of the domain name, and the registrant may sometimes be called an 'owner', but no such legal relationship is actually associated with the transaction, only the exclusive right to use the domain name."

Can you own a domain name in a legal sense? Or, are there any contractual reasons to prefer one registrar over another?

3 comments

[ 80.6 ms ] story [ 204 ms ] thread
dangrossman
They are just describing the practice of a minority of registrars to put their own contact info in the WHOIS registrant info instead of your contact info. Gandi isn't a big exception here, that's not standard practice.

Beyond that, there's not much to discuss. The semantics aren't that important, whether you 'own' or 'lease' the name doesn't change the fact that you get the name for a limited time only, attached to a contract that restricts what you can do with it and allows the registry to take the name back under various circumstances.

pawn
I've recently been wondering if there might be a way to actually own a domain such that I'm not paying someone else a monthly/yearly fee.

I've seen those "premium" domain names that you have to pay $1,000 for and thought "If I bought that, would that be it? I get it forever?"

I haven't really looked into it closely yet, but would be interested to know.

dangrossman
No, that's just someone reselling a domain.

There is no way to own a domain forever with one payment. You can prepay at most 10 years.