Re: W3C and Handle technology

On Tue, 13 Aug 1996, Paul Prescod wrote:

> 
> I suppose that's true. But in practice, the cost of internic registration of
> a domain name means that "small players" (usually individuals) are
> restricted to their service provider's domain name. As long as domain names
> cost money, there should be some way of having URLs that are independant of
> domain names. Anyhow, that's Star Trekish stuff. It probably won't get
> solved in the short run. Perhaps the long-term solution is to make domain
> name registration faster, cheaper and easier.

This isn't exactly true. The cost is quite minor really. For a typical
account costing $20 a month US, it adds only about 20% to the cost of the
account on an annual basis. The real barriers are the charges by providers
for hosting services for running addtional web servers and name service
(which are usually quite substantial) and ignorance on the part of the
"small players"  about *how* to register a domain name - although ISPs are
frequently willing to register things *for* them, for another fee.

-- 
Benjamin Franz

Received on Wednesday, 14 August 1996 09:54:42 UTC