practicalities of blogging

[McLauchlan, Kevin]

On Behalf Of Chris Borokowski doesn't like...
> GoDaddy has support issues. It's hard to get a real person on the
line.
> When you do, that person often cannot do anything. Once something is
in
> the system, it is not questioned.
> 
> Even worse, they have a policy that says a complaint about a domain,
> even if it is not the domain owner's fault, results in the domain
> getting put on hold and non-transferrable. They basically seize your
> domain if there's a problem. Since spam and other problems are easily
> forged, this means one person can shut down your entire web presence
> with a simple phone call -- and  you will not get your domain back
> until you spend hours and hours harassing GoDaddy's employees and
legal
> team.
> 
> There are enough competent registrars that using GoDaddy is really
> unwise. I will second the recommendation for Dreamhost, who also have
a
> registrar that's quite highly rated.

Good enough.
So... does Dreamhost _sell_ you your domain registration (for its
lifespan) or just rent it to you only while you are with them?  (As we
were warned to verify by another poster yesterday.)

I understand that there are regulations about portability, but I wonder
what their scope is. If you are in a different country than your
Registrar, do they apply rules of their country, or rules of your
country when it comes to portability and other considerations?  What are
the chances of a domain being held hostage if you wish to change
registrars?  I can see where that would be annoying for hobbyist
bloggers, and fiscally life-threatening for businesses with established
online identities (as most seem to be these days). 
For example, I'm in Canada. goDaddy would have even less reason to
respect my claim on their paid-for services than for somebody south of
here. What about Dreamhost? Others?   Has anybody got a good feel for
this kind of thing?  Is it a non-issue, mostly?
How about the list-owners? Techwr-l has a lengthy history on the
internet - anybody you'd steer us from?  To?

Kevin
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