I'm leery of recommending godaddy, frankly. They recently took down the domain of a security researcher with basically no notice, and no appeal. It was a direct attack at the DNS level, which is really bad news.

Politically, i'm not sure where gandi stands, but:

• they're not US-based, which makes them a little bit insulated from US corporate pressure,
• their web site aesthetic is very minimalist and clean (few ads, and it's actually usable), and
• they seem to have a commitment to free software.

  Anyway, i'm looking at changing my domain registrations from godaddy to gandi. i can report back about the changeover, if you like.

  --dkg

  I have been running into this issue too many times with a Tucows reseller. In the past I have not been able to contact the reseller or Tucows for any assistance and had to let the domain expire to aquire it back for the client. I have another customer with a tucows reseller domain again, no responces from either Tucows or reseller. We waited for the domain to expire, but the reseller renewed it again. Transfer requests have failed, emails, phone calls have all failed. The client has stopped paying bills over a year ago in hopes the site will stop running. The client purchased another domain and website, they want their original domain name to point to the new website. The reseller keeps the old website running, the content is a few years old. Any suggestions? Does Tucows have any fax authorization or other such process to aquire your domain? The client is at least listed as the registrant. I have never had as much trouble with domain names as I do with Tucows resellers!

  --thezepher

  I ran into some frustration with a godawful reseller recently who'd basically gone out of business but not stopped billing us. We couldn't update our DNS, I think was the trigger. Mail to "help@" and "admin@" and "support@" got automated replies inviting a phone call. Phone calls weren't returned.

  When I went to Tucows directly, the process was pretty simple. I had to use their system to try one more time to contact the reseller, wait two days for a response (okay, that can be tiresome) and when none was forthcoming, Tucows stepped in and transferred the domain for me.

  It was annoying, but most of the annoyance wasn't because of Tucows. I found them to be pretty gracious and helpful.

  Amanda B Hickman http://velociraptor.info

  --amanda

  Yes, please report back. We need some way of rating these webhosters and domain hosters. i'm going bannanas with a reseller of Tucows called EV1, which was bought out but The Planet and now i can't login to repoint my domain name! Arg!

  The Planet's phones are all busy, all the time. Customer support does not respond by e-mail, not even an automatic "We got your mail!" response. How can this be so hard?

  Have a great day!

  --frazelle09