Anyone have experience in registering a ".it" domain, if you don't reside in Italy and you have no presence in Italy? I've heard that some registrars will act like your agent (like a corporate agent) to work around this restriction.
I've heard bad things about europeregistry.com (just Google, you'll find posts from this forum). Are there any reliable ones (and not too expensive, I might add).

Tried a year or so ago and it was a beaurocratic nightmare, after many weeks and eventually losing patience I cancelled the transaction - if you don't really need it forget it is my advice!

I have VERY good experience with http://aruba.it - price- and service-wise. There *WAS* need to fax some paperwork to nic.it, but besides that all went exceptionally smoothly. I was prepared for MUCH more headache... :)

Yes, you don't need to be Italian citizen/company, but you MUST have some kind presense in EU. I registered this domain for my customer and I have heard they actually *checked* the info (contacted local tax office to check VAT number validity).

Good luck!

www.eurodns.com looks like it might be alright (I haven't checked anything with them for a few months).

Last time I looked, I thought you could register .it if you were an EU citizen, not necessarily Italian.

Otherwise, maybe you could set up a cheap off-the-shelf company somewhere in Europe and register it through them.

I also tried to register it once for a customer, but after 3 months I hadn't received any information yet & I got tired of it. It would also be possible my domain registrar was the problem, I do not know, but they kept blaming the .it TLD instead of theirselves.

[url]Otherwise, maybe you could set up a cheap off-the-shelf company somewhere in Europe and register it through them.

Even in the UK (which is one of the cheaper and less bureaucratic countries in that respect) a "cheap off-the-shelf company" will cost you a few hundred pounds to set up, and will require annual paperwork-filing and annual fees to keep it going. And if the company has registered a domain then it becomes a trading company which needs to file proper accounts with the Inland Revenue and with Companies House (a non-trading company can file "zero" accounts).

Unless you really really really want that domain very very badly I don't think it's worth the hassle.

I have VERY good experience with http://aruba.it - price- and service-wise. There *WAS* need to fax some paperwork to nic.it, but besides that all went exceptionally smoothly. I was prepared for MUCH more headache... :)

In fact registering an .IT needs a paper with a LAR (letter of responsibility assumption) to be faxed to http://www.nic.it/RA/en/faq/faq-lar.html
and other paper has to be produced to change owner, update registrant details, and no whois privacy options are available.
But beeing a ccTld sometimes it's useful to request it instead of another Tld.

Stan, at least from outside Italy I read some good reviews about Aruba, am happy you had no problems at all.
My opinion is they're more commercial ones than techies, smart when it comes to sell something, but not really for anyone looking for techie paradise.
[(Domains are something one could buy, though, some tlds have really low prices (read above: smart commercials)]

I would highly recommend against getting one if it's not absolutely necessary - I registered and paid for one several months ago and it was just activated about a week ago. It takes forever and they're VERY slow to get things done.

I would highly recommend against getting one if it's not absolutely necessary - I registered and paid for one several months ago and it was just activated about a week ago. It takes forever and they're VERY slow to get things done.
That depends both on the Nic that screenes each paper MANUALLY (yeah in the internet era we stil like to do this way :/) and the registrar.
Did you used an .it based registrar or not?

That depends both on the Nic that screenes each paper MANUALLY (yeah in the internet era we stil like to do this way :/) and the registrar.
Did you used an .it based registrar or not?

Yes, they were based in Italy. The problem is with the NIC, not the registrars :)

The registration went through fine, it just took forever (and I had to find nameservers that they'd actually allow).

nocebo - they don't allow normal nameservers? i use the .net extension for my nameservers and am interested in buying an .it domain too.

nocebo - they don't allow normal nameservers? i use the .net extension for my nameservers and am interested in buying an .it domain too.

Nameserver extension does not matter. What matters though is DNS IPs. They must be in different C classes.

try register.it, they seems big

i believe both .de and .it requires 2 difference c-classes for nameservers to be on

try register.it, they seems big

i believe both .de and .it requires 2 difference c-classes for nameservers to be on
Yep, its like this in most european countries... nightmare for "support" dep. :confused:
I believe www.eurodns.com can do all dirty job, just go there and try to register. Price of course 2x, but its worth it.

Good luck :)