11–20 of 59 posts
I previously supported GoDaddy because they were based out of the US and had local US support. Same reason I recently switched to NameCheap during the whole 'GoDaddy supports SOPA' affair. Gandi.net headquarters is based out of Paris, France (although they do have a US office). One thing to bear in mind.
I use gandi.net for all my domains. A tiny bit pricier than namecheap, but excellent service and management.
At $15 for a .com, they're almost double what I'd pay at either Namecheap or Name.com. I couldn't find it easily, but are there better prices for transfers?
I recently asked them why they charge more than competitors for, this was the response:
Thank you for contacting Gandi Customer Care. It is true, Gandi does charge slightly more for domains than some other registrars. We do feel that we are still affordable, however. The reason we need to charge a small premium is that we have a different business model than other, larger companies, and cannot get by on razor-thin margins. We are a commercial organization, certainly, and we do make money, but we also support the community of innovators in the hosting and domain name management space, and we do not advertise, but rely on word of mouth for our marketing. We do not buy market share with ads, and we do not make empty promises to capture customers. We also include some services (such as a free year of SSL certificates and the ability to obfuscate your whois data) that other registrars tend to charge incrementally for. This is because we believe that your data is yours. We will never sell your private information as some others do, and so we do not have that revenue stream.
We appreciate your willingness to consider Gandi as an ethical, no-bullshit alternative to GoDaddy. Right now a lot of domains are available at $8/yr through the end of 2011. We hope you will join us.
Gandi.net has revocation polices similar to GoDaddy where they can impose their own morality at revoking your domain.
Gandi.net has revocation polices similar to GoDaddy where they can impose their own morality at revoking your domain.
Don't they have a term whereby they can take your domain if they want to (or rather, decide they could make more money that way)? ISTR that was why I avoided Gandi.net last time I bought a domain.
Hmm, yeah, you're right: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/05/googlesharing_cert_r... Revoked SSL based on trademark and Whois information. Although the article does provide an update which says: The reason for the certificate being revoked was because of the inaccurate whois data. Certificates really are a seal of trust, but that cannot be based on falsified whois data. It was right to revoke the certificate for…
Mr. Marlinspike bought a SSL certificate from Gandi by giving them wrong personal information. When Gandi revoked the certificate, the support guys first wrongly communicated that it was probaly due to a trademark dispute, but it was actually just about the wrong whois information.[1]
Ok, miscommunications happen, but what really irks me about Mr. Marlinspike is that he later went on to complain about how companies did not do enough to verify the whois information for SSL certificates.[2] Which was, as we know, the reason why his SSL certificate was revoked.
What do we learn from this: Give correct whois information and your domain will be fine. For trademark disputes there is the UDRP process[3] which not just Gandi but also most other registrars (including namecheap) have agreed to.
1: http://www.gandibar.net/post/2010/04/06/TheRegistercouk-comm...
2: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/11/state_of_ssl_analysi...
Gandi.net has revocation polices similar to GoDaddy where they can impose their own morality at revoking your domain.
Gandi.net has revocation polices similar to GoDaddy where they can impose their own morality at revoking your domain.
Care to elaborate a bit more on this?
> "For example, Gandi does not tolerate activity that is morally objectionable or that poses a threat to public order" [1]
From their domain registration terms:
> "Consequently, You commit Yourself to assuring that Our services are used in a licit manner and in conformity to Our Ethical standards" [2]
> "You commit Yourself to choosing and using Your domain name and Our services in a way that constantly respects the rights of third parties (intellectual property laws, personality rights, image rights, and the respect of private life, trademarks, etc.)"
From their general conditions of service:
> "By accepting Our Contracts and using Our services, You agree to abide to Our code of ethics which consists, in particular, of protecting and respecting minors, human dignity, public order and good moral standards, not infringing on the rights of third parties (private life, image, honor and reputation, trademarks, designs and models, copyrights, etc.) or the security of persons, property, the government, or the good working order of public institutions, and to help in the fight against abusive and/or deviant uses of the Internet (spamming, phishing, hacking, cracking, or attempts at hacking or cracking), or any other infraction as cited in the Penal Code." [3]
So Gandi reserves the right to revoke your domain name if it determines you violate one of their "good moral standards", or anyone makes any copyright claim against you. They essentially gave themselves contractual power to police the content of the sites on domains purchased through them.
1: http://www.gandibar.net/post/2007/01/11/Gandi-fights-back-ag...
2: https://www.gandi.net/static/contracts/en/g1/pdf/domain_name...
3: https://www.gandi.net/static/contracts/en/g2/pdf/MSA-1.0-EN....
One simple but obvious feature they have is the ability to create DNS presets and apply those for new domains, it's really useful. (other people probably offer this)
Gandi also has fantastic support; it is slightly sad that they do not have a telephone number, but I get the vibe that Gandi is a real technology company and they believe they can offer premium support with support email. I agree, but I'd still like a telephone number for burning issues.
My only real complaint is that they have an unbelievably stupid login system where you log in not with a username, nor with an email address, but with an entirely random username. Mine is: PC5669-GANDI. It's infuriating if you ever need to use Gandi on a different computer. Why they saw it suitable to put their company name at the end of every login is puzzling.
Honestly though, its a minor criticism, and I love their "no bullshit" policy: http://www.gandi.net/no-bullshit
In my experience it is true.