Gandi.net claims that you actually own, not lease, a domain name you register with them:<p>http://iwi.gandibar.net/post/2008/10/20/Who-is-Gandi-and-why-should-I-care-about-them<p>However, Wikipedia:<p>"...this transaction is termed a sale or lease of the domain name, and the registrant may sometimes be called an 'owner', but no such legal relationship is actually associated with the transaction, only the exclusive right to use the domain name."<p>Can you own a domain name in a legal sense? Or, are there any contractual reasons to prefer one registrar over another?
They are just describing the practice of a minority of registrars to put their own contact info in the WHOIS registrant info instead of your contact info. Gandi isn't a big exception here, that's not standard practice.<p>Beyond that, there's not much to discuss. The semantics aren't that important, whether you 'own' or 'lease' the name doesn't change the fact that you get the name for a limited time only, attached to a contract that restricts what you can do with it and allows the registry to take the name back under various circumstances.