When you purchase a domain name, you own the rights to it. You can think of
it like a lease. You can pay for a year at a time, or up to 10 years. If
you forget to renew, and your lease expires, you are given around 60 days
to bring it up to date. After four months it goes back in the public domain
where someone else can purchase it.

Once you own mydomain.com or .net or .org or .biz or .inf or .us or your
country ( all of these are domains), if you do not have your own internet
servers, then you will need someone to host it for you, . You can have such
hosting companies host your web site, and some email addresses, in a
package, or you can just have your email addresses hosted by themselves
with no web site = [log in to unmask] But you, exclusively, own and
control what happens to that domain name.

You can move it to another hosting company, you can take it off line, you
can sell it. You may enter into a contract with a hosting company to host
your email, or web site, for a certain period of time, that commits you
financially, however, this has nothing to do with the ownership of the
domain name.

It matters not which ISP(s) you use to access your email account on the
hosting service. Your ISP may not be, and probably isn't, involved in this,
unless they are the ones hosting something for you. You can purchase
domains from many, many companies, which usually offer many of these
services. There are no fixed prices, and no difference between buying from
one company, or another. Although a lot of them would like you to think so.

I personally use  www.godaddy.com to purchase and manage all my domains,
although I use the servers here at the NoSpin Group to host them. Godaddy
offers an extensive line of hosting services, at very competitive rates.
You will be hard pressed to find better prices, and services, then Godaddy
offers.

Rode
The NOSPIN Group
http://freepctech.com

At 11:55 PM 11/4/2003, you wrote:
>Not sure if this is the place to ask, but you guys know so much, I know one
>of you can answer this question.
>
>I want to get my own domain name.  No, it's not a vanity thing.  Just need a
>permanent address as I will be changing my ISP and need to lock in an
>address.  My understanding is that some of the companies that will sign me
>up end up retaining ownership of the domain name, thus I can lose it at a
>later date.  So, how do I get a name in my name that nobody can steal?  And
>then, how do I set it up so the mail is forwarded to me at my ISP?  And
>then, how do I send out mail from my ISP and still show it being from my
>shiny new domain name?
>
>Hey, I think this is a software qauestion!
>
>William Closure

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