KRNIC

Type:	Public
Industry:	Internet
Founded:	1999
Headquarters:	6F, IT Venture Tower,78 Garak-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul 138-950
Country:	Korea
Website:	KRNIC
Key People
Chung-Hee Jin, Executive Director-KRNIC Internet Name Policy Chun Eung Hwi, Member- Name & Number Committee Jae-Chul Sir, Senior Fellow of KISA

KRNIC (Korea Network Information Center) is the domain name registry for South Korea's .kr country code top-level domain name.

KRNIC was founded in 1999 to manage Korea's Internet resources. In 2009, it was merged with the Korea Internet Security Agency (KISA) and the National Internet Development Agency of Korea (NIDA). KRNIC is now performing its responsibilities as the Korean registry under the supervision of KISA.

Responsibilities

KRNIC's primary role is the coordination of Korean Internet resources such as:

1. Allocate and assign IP addresses and AS numbers
2. Manage and develop policies for the .kr domain
3. Ensure the operation and evolution of the DNS, accreditation of registrars, etc.

Qualifications for Registration

KRNIC requires the following qualifications of entities interested in registering a .kr domain name:

1. Registrants must have a local presence within Korea
2. Registrants must meet certain criteria that is classified by characteristics of the 2nd level domains

KRNIC and ICANN

On November 3, 2000, Chun Eung Hwi, a member of the Name & Number Committee of KRNIC, made the following recommendations to and ICANN forum regarding new generic top-level domains:

1. Selection of numerous diverse gTLDs as possible to allow the ICANN and the internet community to evaluate possible impacts of the introduction of new gTLDs and ensure the steady and continuous introduction of new gTLDs in the future.
2. To be able to ease the over-crowding of the .com domain space, several comparable should be selected.
3. A variety of geographical locations of registry operation should be top priority.
4. KRNIC also suggested that gLTD's that are closely related with particular regions like .asia and .africa should not be accepted. The institution reasoned reasoned the this type of gLTD's might cause conflicts in the future if they will be handled by one single commercial entity and if there are no positive consensus from them.
5. ICANN should consider a different approach for new gTLDs representing public interest or non-profit groups, for example ICANN might select new gTLDs and invite for proposals under a special contract & conditions.
6. The total sum of the non-refundable application fee of $50,000 for submission of gTLD should be much more lowered and the institution cited that it is a fundamental barrier in the proposal process. The fee must be determined following the analysis of expenditure details in scrutiny.
7. To keep the coherent principle in all gTLDs, two existing gTLDs, .gov, and .mil, should be transformed to the 2nd level subdomains of .us domain.