I'm asking this for my co-worker. We bandy about ideas for startups all the time and worry about choosing the wrong domain name registration service. What does the HN community recommend?
gandi.net
+ Private domain registration
+ 1-year free SSL certificate<p>namecheap.com
+ great prices
+ good reputation<p>1and1.com
+ Best prices
+ Responsive Customer Service
- User interface
( Scratch that. They just did redesign and it looks great )
Look for one that posts its prices publicly; that is, you should not need to register for an account to find out what you will pay.<p>I researched that a while back. The only one I found was name.com, which I recommend for other reasons as well.<p>If a registrar won't admit to all their prices without requiring a login, you're likely to find a bait-and-switch taking place, for example it is common for renewal fees to be quite a lot more than new registrations or transfers.
Before you register a domain, research it in the trademark section at <a href="http://www.uspto.gov/" rel="nofollow">http://www.uspto.gov/</a><p>You might not be infringing a trademark just by registering it. The rules are a little too complex for me to explain in an HN comment. However it is helpful to have a totally unique trademark.