.al

.al is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Albania. It is managed by the Electronic and Postal Communications Authority of Albania (AKEP).

The ccTLD is an open ccTLD, where foreign companies and individuals can register .al domains, although registration for .com.al, .net.al, and .org.al names are still restricted to Albanian companies.

History

The .al ccTLD was first created on April 21st, 1992, under an initiative of the University of Tirana's Faculty of Natural Sciences, located within its Department of Informatics. It officially became a registry in 1998, when it became a "sponsoring organization" and began defining the rules and procedures under which domain names would be delegated to users.

Its original master servers were hosted in Pisa, Italy, but were later transferred to Albania.

In 2010, regulatory policies for the registration of .al changed, so that all companies and individuals with Albanian citizenship and nationality were able to register a .al ccTLD.

In 2013, the restrictions were lifted so that foreign companies and individuals can now register .al domains. It was also the same year that .al saw its first accredited registrars.

Rules

To register a domain under the ".al" zone, one must:

• make sure the domain you want to register is not:

• • part of the List of Prohibited Names, which contains words and/or phrases that are considered sensitive for public use, which includes blasphemy, insults of various types, racism, etc;
  • part of the List of Reserved Names;
  • a trademark/patent registered by this directory: http://dppi.gov.al /.

Characters

Domain names include letters from A to Z, numbers from 0 to 9 and the minus sign "-".

The domain names cannot be registered when:

• Names consist of one character;
• Names start or end with minus "-";
• Names consist of more than 63 characters;
• Names begin with any two alphanumeric characters followed by two minuses ("xy–" format).