Thanks,
Brian
There was a time when there was only 1 domain registrar - Network Solutions - and those were painful and difficult times for many folks. Domains cost $100/2 years and then "dropped" to $70/2 years. Now there are 100s of options and domains cost less than $10/year to register. That's a good thing.
You never "own" a domain, at least not "owning a house". You don't get a deed. It's more like being a tenant than a landowner. You pay an annual registration fee (rent), which entitles you to exclusively occupy the domain for a year, and at the end of the year you have to pay to renew the domain for another year (or multiple years) or the domain "drops" and can be registered (occupied) by anyone else.
Since your questions are "beginner basic" I suggest you visit a variety of domain registrar websites and read their "Domain FAQ" sections. They will provide answers to many of your beginning "how do", why and "what is" questions.
[edited by: Webwork at 3:57 pm (utc) on Sep. 10, 2007]
Why are there so many different places you can buy domains? Where do they all come from and how do they get rights to that domain?
Brian, there is only one REGISTRY for a particular domain extension i.e ".com", ".info" -- but there are hundreds of domain REGISTRARS.
On top of that, there are thousands of "resellers" ... folks who are "selling domain registrations" for a particular Registrar.
All domain registrations (and updates) from all of the registrars (for a particular extension, such as ".com") all go to the single registry.
FYI, the single REGISTRY for ".com" and ".net" extensions is Verisign. You can learn more about the registry/registrar process for .com and .net at their site here [verisign.com].
You can find a wealth of information about virtually all Internet domain name registration services, including lists of all accredited Registrars, and a non-technical FAQ at the InterNIC site, here [internic.com].
Where do they all come from
From thin air. You can register any name you'd like (with some technical limitations, such as which characters you can use, length, etc.) as long as somebody else hasn't already registered it.
Of course, if somebody has already registered it, then you have to convince them to sell it to you. And, if they will at all, it will be at whatever price the traffic will bear. The price of buying an existing domain can be very considerably more (some have changed hands for $1,000,000 or more) than the cost of registering a new one.
and how do they get rights to that domain?
The rights of the registries derive from ICANN, which operates the root domain servers. The registries (.com, .net, .us, .uk, etc.) each maintain DNS servers that "resolve" names within their top-level domain (.com, for example, is a top-level domain). Ultimate control resides with ICANN, as DNS servers and resolvers are (almost always) set-up to use the ICANN root servers as their origin.
At one time, you dealt with the registries directly to register a domain name. They were at first free, and then at some point started charging money. Later, the "registrar" system was created. A registrar is basically an agent for one or more (typically most) of the registries, and handles ordering, payment, and customer service.
I don't think there's any LAW that establishes any of this. (Webwork?) It's technically possible to set-up a parallel domain-name system completely outside of the ICANN structure, and, in fact, it's been done - with little traction ever gained outside of a core of crazed hobbyists. You have to go poking around in funny places in Windows, Linux, etc. to be able to use an alternative DNS system.
So, it's really all based on convention, and grew organically (and "like topsy") out of the domain-name system originally created as part of ARPANet.
