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February 2023

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The .asia registry now offers an extra form of security for your .asia domain name, namely the registry lock.

This lock is an extra security layer that ensures that your .asia name is even better protected. If you decide to activate the registry lock for your name under the .asia extension, no update can be done to this name without first going through a special procedure. Changing the owner, updating name servers,… nothing is possible without going through the verification process.There is a small additional cost per year associated with this registry lock.

Registering a .asia domain name and activating the registry lock can be done quickly and easily.

Until recently, the Danish registry used to only verify contact information for registrants with an address in Denmark. In theory foreigners could also be verified, but this hardly ever happened. Any Danish registrant wanting to by-pass the verification, just needed to select a different country when registering their domain name.

While that old way of working was absurd, the Danish registry now made a complete U-turn which in practice can make a new domain name registration under .dk impossible for foreigners living in a non-English (or Danish) speaking country.
On top of that, foreign registrants might at any time loose their existing and active .dk domain names.

DK-Hostmaster makes a risk-based assessment to decide if they’ll request ID-verification from the owner or not. They do this with every new registration, but they might at any time also request you to proof your identity for existing domain names. Once they requested you to proof your contact details (including address information), they will no longer accept small rectifications to the information they have on file for you.

You have only once chance to supply the correct paperwork, before your domain name goes off-line. If you also fail to send in documents that are satisfactory to DK-Hostmaster in a second attempt, you completely loose all your .dk domain name registrations.

For foreigners, the biggest issue however is that the .dk-registry demands to receive documents either in English or Danish. For many non-English speaking countries, getting a bank statement or utility bill in English is simply impossible. While they refuse to give support related to a concrete case, .dk does (off the record) indicate that documents in an other language might also be accepted, if the verification agent decides they’re sufficiently comprehensible.

This means that a document that is accepted for one verification might be refused for the next verification. Causing all .dk domain names for that owner to instantly go off-line. Even domain names that have previously been successfully verified using the exact same documents. Simply because the verification happened to be carried out by a verification agent who wasn’t in the right mood to understand a document in Dutch or French or German or….

Seemingly at random verifications get refused with as only explanation “the documentation is not in English or Danish”. For new registrations this means the registration fee is lost and typically the registrant will decide to move on to an other extension. For existing domain names, the effects can be devastating as e-mails stop arriving and the website becomes unreachable.

In a response to our article, DK-Hostmaster informed us that they indeed only accept documents in English or Danish language, “to ensure a consistent decision-making process“. It seems that they achieved the exact opposite by this.
They also indicate that, if no English documents can be obtained, a legally certified (apostille) translation will also be accepted.
They aren’t yet considering eIDAS (e-ID) to be able to complete verifications. This is currently already very successfully used by a number of European registries for ID-verification (amongst others .ee, .be, .eu and .bg). But DK-Hostmaster currently finds the system too immature.

Since the launch of the ID verification by DK-hostmaster in 2017, their system was internationally often mentioned as an example of “how not to implement ID-verification”. In the lead up to NIS2 legislation, which will require some sort of verification to be carried out by all European registrars, the Danish seem to be eager to hold on to that status.

The .forum registry has announced that there will be a relaunch of the .forum extension. Moreover, registering a .forum domain name will also become a lot cheaper due to this relaunch.

The relaunch will start on April 12, 2023 and will start with a sunrise that will run until May 10, 2023. During this sunrise you will still pay a higher price for your .forum domain name because you have to pay a one-off sunrise fee.
During the sunrise, only holders of a registered trademark can register their name under these extensions.

The sunrise is followed by an Early Access Period (EAP) that runs from May 10, 2023 to May 17, 2023.
During the EAP, anyone who wishes to do so can register a name, albeit for a higher price. Every day the price will drop slightly.

The Go Live will start on 17 May and anyone who wishes to do so can register a .forum domain name.

With a domain under the .forum extension you have a lot of options. After all, everyone has an opinion about something. Whether you want to discuss politics, review a product, look for the best restaurants or the nicest shops, talk to fellow sufferers or just find good advice for countless problems, you will find people everywhere who can and want to help you with this . A .forum domain name will put you on the right track.

A .forum name can also mean added value for companies. Would you like to talk to your customers or have them review your products? Then a .forum name can be a nice way to show your customers that their opinion matters.

In short, .forum is the ideal extension to make it clear that everyone’s opinion is important.

AuDA (the Australian registry) has published the figures for 2022. This shows that the release of the .au domain has certainly done the registry no harm. These figures show that about one in 6 Australian domain names is a .au domain name.

Since March 2022 it is possible to register a name directly under the .au extension and this is eagerly used. Until March 2022, an Australian domain name could only be registered under .com.au, .net.au or .org.au. From March 2022 you can also register a .au domain name.

The Australian registry currently manages just over 4.16 million names, of which 716,000 are .au domain names. These were registered in just 9 months. The release of the .au domain therefore appears to be a good choice.

Registering a .au domain name is only possible if you meet certain conditions:
OR you are an Australian company and there must be a link between the domain name and the owner of the domain name
OR you have a registered trademark valid in Australia and the domain name you wish to register exactly matches your trademark registered in Australia

If you do not meet these conditions, please contact bNamed. We can undoubtedly still help you out.

NIC.amsterdam (.amsterdam-registry), who manages .amsterdam names now offers an extra form of security for your .amsterdam domain name, namely the registry lock.

This lock is an extra security layer that ensures that your .amsterdam name is even better protected. If you decide to activate the registry lock for your name under the .amsterdam extension, no update can be done to this name without first going through a special procedure. Changing the owner, updating name servers,… nothing is possible without going through the verification process.There is a small additional cost per year associated with this registry lock.

Registering a .amsterdam domain name and activating the registry lock can be done quickly and easily.