ICANN Accreditation

Does it really matter if you use an ICANN accredited registrar or not. We think it does. Read on to learn why.

What is ICANN?
It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it... ICANN, the International Organization for Assigned Names and Numbers, is a non profit organization assigned to regulate the buying and selling of domain names and maintain the Internet domain name system. They are in charge of accrediting eligible registrars and keeping tabs on the registry. This governing body often receives a lot of criticism for the methods used in monitoring the domain name registration system, but all in all ICANN does a pretty good job of regulating the rapidly growing domain name market.

ICANN Accreditation
ICANN is sort of the police force to make sure that customers buying domains may do so through reliable companies. Over one hundred domain registration companies have been accepted by this agency to register domain names. Only registrars accredited by ICANN are authorized to register the gTLDs (Generic Top Level Domains) like .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info and .name with the registries.

Seal of Approval
ICANN does not accredit faulty registrars, so the ICANN accreditation is a seal of approval and a mark of dependability. If a registrar is ICANN accredited they have also been given direct access to the registry. The registry is the main database for each extension that keeps track of who owns which names. Since hundreds of registrars are registering domain names every second it is essential that there be a central database so the same domain name is not sold to more than one individual at once. Since ICANN accredited registrars have direct access to this registry your name will generally get registered in a more timely and efficient manner.