Google partnered with godaddy and eNom http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/your-easiest-holiday-task.html

One thing I don't get is why they're partnering with someone else when Google is already a domain registrar.

yes i don't understand this either tony

It does use google checkout... pretty neat.

They should also integrate the folowing services into google apps:
   – docs and spreadsheets
   – groups
   – picasaweb
   – blogger
   – coop (as a pagecreator module)

Google was already positioning itself as the middle man for the developer with their api's. And Google apps is also a very good way to increase the switching cost.

>> The only way to pay for the domain is with Google Checkout <<

A nice bit of lock-in, there.

<< A nice bit of lock-in, there. >>

Not if you buy your domain from somewhere else...

^^ LOL.

What caused them to partner with GoDaddy? I've heard nothing but crap about them....

Yahoo doesn't sell domains itself either (they use some australian company) Is there some complication or legal woes for large companies?

<<Is there some complication or legal woes for large companies?>>
I assume that Microsoft is no smaller than Google and Yahoo.
http://officelive.microsoft.com
As for partnering up with GoDaddy, hmm, you maybe right about that, they are crap, at least that's what I heard.

Google will be acquiring GoDaddy within roughly 18 months. Think of this as an experiment to see if Google can rapidly migrate millions of small and independent web site operators (including SMB's using GoDaddy) to their expanding online services portfolio. The potential ad revenue is staggering from just GoDaddy channel exposure (both site operators as direct exposure, eg through Gmail accounts seeing ads, as well as potential distributors through AdSense relationships).

You can't use Google anywhere in your web address.

Maybe like Dreamhost is best for Server Space! Go daddy is one of the best for domain name registration! lol i use go daddy!

refer to this url
http://whois.domaintools.com/bringtheawesome.com

the domain name bringtheawesome.com already taken few months ago (23-Feb-06)

Why it is available base on the snapshot taken?

This strategy may help Google to know who owns each domain and how these domains might be used ?

My first thoughts were exactly the same as Tony's. I seem to remember some side-effect benefit of Google being a registrar, but I can't put my finger on it.

I certainly hope google takes over GoDaddy, that certainly will make sure all the windows parking will cease :P.

I hope they also create an option to move a domain to Google Apps.

Haochi: Microsoft itself isn't registering those domains, though; it has a deal with some other company to register those domain names. I remember that Microsoft itself used Tucows to register the Ms. Dewey site, at least.

Man $10.00 for a domain name, I just bought one for $2.95 from Hostmysite :P www.hostmysite.com/promos/eom/

[Unlinked just in case. -Philipp]

I would be carefull registering the domain trough this service.

I got my first domain several years ago from domainzero.com for free. After the free year I renewed it for $25 or so(I'm not sure who was the actual registrar, but i had to log in at enom, later at ehost).

After 4 years or so I saw in the whois that my new Registration Service is accountsupport.com and not enom/ehost or what's the name of this service. I'm not able to login there and when I try to get my password sent it sayss "Sorry, the username for domain (example.net) was not found. Please try again."

The DNS for this domain is still at hosted at eNom, Inc.. so I suppose the same horror story.

I tried to write them several times to get my domain out of this new "locked state" to transfer it to another registrar but without success. (To be honest I didn't read the RFCs and other official stuff regarding a domain transfer).

Because I haven't paid accountsupport.com the way to high annual fee(If you consider that they don't let me login) for the next 5 years they changed the DNS records so that my domain no points to a site whois-help.info and I didn't get my mails. It was a nightmare to change the E-Mail adresses at all the websites where I was registred with my .net adress, not to mention the websites which I forget about ;-)

btw. during my research for this posting I noticed that I'm still in the whois as registrant, administrative and technical contact and the domain is locked, therefore it should be possible to get the domain back, shouldn't it?
   Is there a quick howto on how I'm able to transfer a .net domain when the registrar isn't helpfull?

Disclaimer: This is my own horror story. It's possible that all other customers of the above-mendionet services have made better experiences.