I've been researching reseller programs, and the one thing that bothers me about directi (India) and onlinenic (China) is that they are not US based companies. (OnlineNic has an "office" in California.) For some reason, that comes into play when I must pre-fund an account, and/or hold critical domains with non-US companies. What if I click on their www one morning, and it's not there?

At least if WildWestDomains (GoDaddy/Arizona) or eNom (Washington) have difficulty, as a US Resident, I have some recourse through our court system.

I hold about 150 domains, registering 10-15 per month. I want the best deal, but I'm not willing to sacrifice my security for a dollar. If we were talking about a couple of domains at $7 or $8 bucks, it wouldn't be much to think about. But, I'm looking at it as $11 (my current reg rate) times my 150 domains, annually at $1650 which turns a $7/8 domain name into a nice savings/reduction.

Any of you folks with reseller experience have further thoughts or reasoning on this subject?

I suppose you will have a problem if the domains are registered in a direct non US registrar and not a reseller. If its a reseller then your domains are actually registered not with the reseller but with the registrar. So you dont lose any domains even if the reseller packs up overnight.

You can see an example here: I registered a domain in India with an Indian reseller Net4Domains: Stardew.com. If you make a whois search the registrar is MelbourneIT. So even if the Indian reseller winds up overnight my domain is still with the Australian registrar.

I dont think anyone can easily get to become a domain registrar. They will be some norms to be followed and the registrar has to have some credibility and standing. So if the domains are registered with an Indian registrar [not a reseller] then you may be quite safe actually.

See more details of what qualifies a registrar
http://www.icann.org/registrars/accreditation.htm

I have no direct experience with either registrar. But I wouldnt be too worried about them packing up and leaving. Your legal recourse against them may be very limited (see sex.com case -with VeriSign, a US based company). I actually would trust the indians more :-D I would not worry too much. But if you cannot settle that fear, just go with eNom. a 6.95 account or 7.95 account should be ok for you. Save you quite a bit of money longterm.
Good luck!

OnlineNic is registered as a US company on the ICANN website

Originally posted by ShareAServer
... What if I click on their www one morning, and it's not there?
Frankly, what would YOU do when e.g. Verisign or Register.com (or other U.S.-based registrar) goes down? Going to court? There are TONS of other people worrying more about that than you as an individual registrant with a few thousand domain names at the most. C'mon, it's a WORLD WIDE web and we're not talking about post-war Iraq or Afghanistan. By the way, I DO know some folks who only buy from their neighborhood convenience store ... probably for the very same good reason that you mentioned. LOL! Sorry, can't help it.