Google is now an ICANN registrar. It looks like they will offer their services to the public in the near future. If not, why would they become a registrar? Perhaps to gain some publicity?

Here's the article:
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/20...registrar.html

Google is definitely going to do something with this new status. Probably something creative (as they are known). This only brings them closer to the option of providing hosting. We'll see what they do with it!

Thanks for the link, I'll definately keep my eyes and ears open over the comming months. I'd be very interested into what google will evolve into over the next few years..

Google is growing quickly, kind of scary when one company has so much control of the internet.

I kinda wonder how long it'll go before someone starts screaming, "MONOPOLY!" :-p

LOL! I don't think their at Yahoo's stage yet, probably won't be for at least a year or so, so if anyone wants to complain about monopoly, Yahoo's avalible for that

Their main market is very volatile though. All it takes is a new cool search engine to come along and Google will become Altavista.

BTW, welcome to HD u2mike!

I have to agree here.

I remember when AltaVista was a great resource. Then as Yahoo grew, AltaVista became almost unheard of.

It didn't take long for Google to knock Yahoo down a peg or two either, when it came to search engine functionality.

You can imagine that someone is sitting right now contemplating the bullet in Google as well, or will be when they get out of Jr. high.

LOL hahahahaha, that's funny, I think google is trying to play monopoly on the internet like what Microsoft did with operating system for pc, google offer 1GB mail box and Microsoft's hotmail is offering only 250mb.

Its strange how, yahoo who was leading the race in internet search engines has lost it to google in a matter of years. Google offers so much more than just the search engine now though I guess.

This was bound to happen. A successful company must expand. Google is a very creative company, and i would not be sup prised if they offered hosting, servers, domains etc.
I don't see how it will affect the larger hosting companies. If you stay with your niche market and continue to provide good service, google will just be another yahoo.

Awesome! Can't wait.

Google has already became a registrar. They did so on February 1st, 2005.

What I heard is that while google did file to become a registrar they have no plans on selling/offering domain names instead the goal of getting the registrar was a way of cutting cost on renewing their large number of domain names and registering new ones.

I have no problem with Google becoming a registrar, hosting company, email services, whatever they may choose to offer. You will never be able to please everyone, since folks will always be screaming "MONOPOLY!" when a company becomes large enough. But at the same time, Google does not control any market (and I do not forsee them going in that direction), nor do they force their products on anyone.

There will always be room for companies to compete against Google, Yahoo, and the like in any provided service.