.br

Status:	Active
country:	Brazil
Language:	Portuguese
Manager:	Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br)
Registry Provider:	Registro.br
Date Implemented:	1989
Type:	ccTLD
Community:	No
More information:

.br is the country code top-level domain name (ccTLD) assigned to Brazil under the ISO-3166 standard. The Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) is the policy making body and over-all manager of Internet services in Brazil, including the operations of the .br ccTLD. Nic.br serves as the executive arm of the Committee. It is responsible for coordinating the allocation of Autonomous System Numbers (ASN), IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, as well as the registration and maintenance of .br domain names. Registro.br provides back-end registry solutions.

Legal presence in Brazil is required to register a .br domain i.e. the user has to be a resident, citizen, or legal entity based in Brazil and also needs to have a valid local postal address and a two-letter state code.

Rules and Restrictions

The registration of .br domain names is allowed only for entities that legally operate in the country, freelance professionals, and individuals. A number of documents are required, including Taxpayer Identification Numbers. In the case of foreign companies, provisional registration may be granted upon providing the following requirements:

• appointment of a legally established attorney in the country;
• submission of a power of attorney with notarized signature in the company's country of origin, granting the attorney powers for the registration, cancellation, and transfer of domain ownership, for the modification of the entity's contact information, and to represent it both judicially and extrajudicially;
• submission of a declaration of the company's commercial activity, with a notarized signature in the company's country of origin, which must mandatorily include the corporate name, full address, telephone number, corporate purpose, activities performed, and the name and position of the legal representative;
• submission of a commitment declaration from the company, with a notarized signature in its country of origin, assuming that it will definitively establish its activities in Brazil within twelve months from the date NIC.br receives these documents;
• the consular legalization of the power of attorney, the declaration of commercial activity, and the commitment declaration, to be carried out at the Brazilian Consulate in the company's country of origin;
• the sworn translation of the power of attorney, the declaration of commercial activity, and the commitment declaration;
• submission of a copy of the attorney's Taxpayer Identification Number (CPF or CNPJ).
• submission of an official letter from the attorney indicating the contact ID of the foreign entity.

Domain Name Restrictions

One cannot choose a name that violates current Brazilian legislation, misleads third parties, infringes on the rights of third parties, represents predefined concepts on the Internet, contains offensive or abusive language, symbolizes acronyms of states or ministries, or falls under other prohibitions that may be defined by CGI.br.

Characters

A domain name chosen for registration under a specific top-level domain, considering only its most specific distinctive part, must:

• have a minimum of 2 (two) and a maximum of 26 (twenty-six) characters;
• be a combination of letters and numbers [a-z; 0-9], hyphen [-], and the following accented characters: à, á, â, ã, é, ê, í, ó, ô, õ, ú, ü, ç;
• not consist solely of numbers and not begin or end with a hyphen.

.br & .бг Controversy

There has been ongoing debate over the multiple rejected applications by Bulgaria to ICANN to include its .бг in the IDN ccTLD Fast track process. ICANN staff has noted that .бг is confusingly similar to .br to latin users, and it has been countered that sites using full the full cyrillic alphabet, such as компания.бг, would rarely come into confusion with latin domains. ICANN has rejected the application on at least two occasions, in 2009 and 2010, and has also denied requests to provide further information on its reasoning and process in 2011. In July, 2012, after ICANN had rejected other IDN ccTLDs, notably involving the Greek version of .eu (.ελ), the GAC wrote to ICANN that it must explain its prior reasoning and reconsider its ruling on these apparently confusing IDN ccTLDs. The GAC believes that the organization is being "too conservative" in its rulings.

After .бг had been rejected for the second time in 2010, the Brazilian GAC member praised the decision, saying "Brazil would like to express its support to the recent board’s decision about avoiding graphic similitude between new country codes and current country codes in Latin. This is particularly important inasmuch as any graphic confusion might facilitate phishing practices and all the problems related to it."

However, after the two unsuccessful applications, .бг was added to the Root Zone on 5 March 2016 and delegated to Imena.BG Plc. The ICANN Board approved the delegation on 25 June 2019.

Country code top-level domain

Internationalized Domain Name

Governmental Advisory Committee. Considers and provides advice on the activities of ICANN as they relate to concerns of governments, particularly matters where there may be an interaction between ICANN's policies and various laws and international agreements or where they may affect public policy issues (ICANN Bylaws).