Sorry for not being clear, but I'm asking about domain registrars, not hosting services. They're not an accredited domain registrar and I know I'm not the only one that cares about that.

I want to deal with the company that controls my fate in the event of a legal issue, domain theft... or if we lose this battle, responding to SOPA actions. A reseller is a bit powerless to help you with those things.

I watched Nearly Free Speech go to bat for a friend being sued over a possibly frivolous trademark dispute. In the end, after my friend lost the lawsuit and the court ordered the domain name to be transferred, somehow Nearly Free Speech interpreted it as allowing said friend to keep the domain with a blank page on it and it's still up, several years later.

Ah. I hadn't actually realized NFSN wasn't an accredited registrar. http://faq.nearlyfreespeech.net/section/domainregistration/a...

I just initiated a full transfer to http://iwantmyname.com -- this is the sort of company where the co-founder personally replies to your support tickets.

That's a very bad thing. Domain registration isn't something you want to trust to an upstart that could go out of business, sell the business, or encounter legal problems they're not big enough to handle. Losing a domain name for an extended period is about the worst thing that could happen to an online business, like mine... worse than losing a payment processor, ad network, web host, or any other service. Without your domain, your customers can't reach you and nobody can buy from you... and you can't simply buy another. Stick with accredited registrars with a few million domains in their portfolio.

Now add SOPA to the mix for a site that hosts user content (like blog comments). If anyone files a right of action against you, the registrar pulls your domain, and you have 5 days to file a counternotice to get it back. If you're buying from a reseller like this, how many of those 5 days are wasted between the time they're notified by the registrar they resell and them notifying you? You really don't have the time to spare -- you need to get that notice, retain counsel, write and send the counternotice, and get it to the registrar (who you may not be able to directly contact by buying through the reseller) before time's up.

IWantMyName is an accredited registrar (at least, they claim to be) and their founders post on HN, so there's that. I understand what you're getting at though -- I don't run an online business so I can take the risk.

By the way, Hover.com is basically TUCOWS, which makes them one of the biggest registrars.

This works for me http://www.reg.ru/en/