Everything about Domain Name Registry totally explained
A
domain name registry, also called
Network Information Centre (NIC), is part of the
Domain Name System (DNS) of the
Internet which converts
domain names to
IP addresses. It is an
organisation that manages the registration of Domain names within the
top-level domains for which it's responsible, controls the policies of domain name allocation, and technically operates its top-level domain. It is potentially distinct from a
domain name registrar.
Domain names are managed under a hierarchy headed by the
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which manages the top of the DNS tree by administrating the data in the
root nameservers.
IANA also operates the
.int registry for intergovernmental organisations, the
.arpa zone for protocol administration purposes, and other critical zones such as
root-servers.net.
IANA delegates all other domain name authority to other domain name registries such as
VeriSign.
Country code top-level domains (ccTLD) are delegated by IANA to national registries such as
DENIC in
Germany, or
Nominet in the
United Kingdom.
Operation
Some name registries are government departments (for example, the registry for Sri Lanka
www.nic.lk 
). Some are co-operatives of internet service providers (such as DENIC) or not-for profit companies (such as
Nominet UK). Others operate as commercial organizations, such as the US registry (
www.nic.us).
The allocated and assigned domain names are made available by registries by use of the
WHOIS system and via their
Domain name servers.
Some registries sell the names directly (like
SWITCH in
Switzerland) and others rely on separate entities to sell them. For example, names in the
.com TLD are in some sense sold "wholesale" at a regulated price by
VeriSign, and individual
domain name registrar sell names "retail" to businesses and consumers.
Policies
Allocation policies
Generally, domain name registries operate a
first-come-first-served system of allocation but may reject the allocation of specific domains on the basis of political, religious, historical, legal or cultural reasons.
For example, in the United States, between
1996 and
1998,
InterNIC automatically rejected domain name applications based on a list of perceived obscenities.
Registries may also control matters of interest to their local communities: for example, the German, Japanese and Polish registries have introduced internationalized domain names to allow use of local non-ASCII characters.
Dispute policies
Domains which are registered with
ICANN registrars, generally have to use the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (
UDRP), however, Germany's
DENIC requires people to use the German civil courts, and
Nominet UK deals with
Intellectual Property and other disputes through its own dispute resolution service.
Cost of registration
The cost of domain registration is set by each individual registry.
Second-level domains
Domain name registries may also impose a system of
second-level domains on users.
DENIC, the registry for
Germany (.de), doesn't impose second level domains. AFNIC, the registry for
France (.fr), has some second level domains, but not all registrants have to use them, and Nominet UK, the registry for the
United Kingdom (.uk), requires all names to have a second level domain.
Registrants of second-level domains sometimes act as a registry by offering sub-registrations to their registration. For example, registrations to
.fami.ly are offered by the registrant of fami.ly and not by GPTC, the registry for Libya (.ly).
Further Information
Get more info on 'Domain Name Registry'.
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