Can someone explain this copy (next paragraph) from a website? Of course I understand the first line setup. It's the next line I do not understand.

Network Solutions charges Internic fees of $35.00 a year in the .COM, .NET or .ORG hierarchies for the use of your domain name if approved. Country Code and gTLDs supported by the ORSC Root Zone (such as .MART, .WEB, etc.) all have individual fee structures. If you are interested in such a domain we will contact you with additional information.

Also something was mentioned about a Pacific Root. I got this while looking for information on what is supposed to be a gTLD or an aTLD name. Is this legit? Sounds like some sort of ?????



[Edited by couponjim on 02-03-2001 at 06:10 PM]

gTLD stands for Generic Top-Level Domain. "Officially" these are .com, .net., .org (I'm not sure offhand whether .gov and .edu are technically considered gTLDs).

aTLD stands for Army of The Living Dead.

It also stands for Alternate Top Level Domain. The whole aTLD thing is confusing, and I'm sure there's an expert around here that knows the details better than I. Basically, ORSC (Open Root Server Confederation) is a group that, for some time now, has been supporting alternate TLDs like .web, .mart, etc. These are not officially recognized by ICANN, and most ISPs don't support these. If you typed in http://nic.web you'll probably get an error message from your browser. It's my understanding that Pacific Root provides DNS and registration services for these aTLDs (registering one is really cheap, like $5).

(A big problem--mainly for ORSC--is that one of the new ICANN-approved TLDs coming out is .biz; .biz is already in use by ORSC, so you've got the potential for two entities to own the same .biz domain name.)

Anyway, if you want to play it safe, I highly recommend sticking to .com, .net, or .org domain names, at least until the new ICANN-approved TLDs come out.

Now you're more confused than ever, right?

Thanks, That helps at least to let me know I had not missed some really important part of the domain names business. It appears that at least some of the people selling these names try to use the lack of good information to their advantage and sell to unsuspecting buyers. Hopefully someone else maybe can either explain further or point me toward more information. I will search a little more myself.