A TLD which is linked to a country. They are described in RFC 1591 and the list of country codes (two letters each) comes from ISO.

See Also Top Level Domain.

The distributed and hierachical information system that allows, among many other things names such as www.foobar.example to be translated into IP addresses and back.

The general concepts of the DNS are described in RFC 1034.

A TLD which is not linked to a country. In practice, some gTLD are indeed international in usage, like ".com" or ".org" but some, for historical reasons, are USA-specific like ".gov" or ".edu".

See Also Top Level Domain.

Synonym of registrant.

See Also Registrant.

A function of ICANN: IANA records and publishes the use of the unique virtual resources such as IP addresses, domain names, protocol numbers, etc.

See Also Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

ICANN manages the allocation and change of the unique virtual resources of the Internet such as IP addresses, domain names, protocol numbers, etc.

ICANN is a private corporation under the laws of the United States of America. Several functions it assumes depend on a delegation from the USA governement.

The organism in charge of a TLD. It manages the database of the domains registered under this TLD, as well as the associated information (name servers, contacts, etc).

See Also Top Level Domain.

The entity (company, association, physical person) which registers a domain name. It is not an owner, because domain names are typically only rented, not bought.

See Also Sponsoring organization.

The entity (typically a company) which sells domain names to registrants. Unlike the simple reseller, the registrar has an access to the database of the registry, through a standard protocol like RRP or EPP.

The entity in charge of the TLD. For a ccTLD, NIC and registry are often used interchangeably.

See Also Network Information Center.

In IANA language, the registrant of a TLD. At the present time, it is often the administrative contact, because sponsoring organizations are a quite recent concept. But check ".tv" for an example where they are distinct.

See Also Registrant.

A domain which is right under the root of the DNS, like ".fr" or ".net".

See Also Country-Code Top Level Domain, Generic Top Level Domain.