.info
 | |
| Industry: | TLD |
| Founded: | 2001 |
| Headquarters: | Dublin |
| Country: | Ireland |
| Website: | http://www.info.info |
| Key People | |
| Roland LaPLante, Senior VP & Chief Marketing Officer Ram Mohan, VP of Business Operations & Chief Technical Officer | |
.info is a generic top level-domain name (gTLD) in the internet Domain Name System (DNS) managed and operated by Afilias. It is the first unrestricted TLD following .com. Its official opening for public registration started on October 1, 2001.[1] The .info TLD is the world's fourth largest new gTLD.
History edit
In 1990, the .com TLD already reached as many as 20 million registered domains therefore registrants are already starting to experience difficulties to find a short, simple and easy to remember domain name.In order to alleviate the situation, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names (ICANN) requested proposals for new TLD's from registry stake holders on its website on August 5, 2000.[2] On October 2000, ICANN received 44 proposed domains and by November of the same year during the organizations annual meeting the Board of Directors approved 7 new TLDs which include: .aero, .biz, .coop, .info .museum, .name and .pro. [3]
ICANN approved the application of Afilias as the registry operator of the .info TLD on May 11, 2001,[4] subsequently the United States Department of Commerce entered .info into the internet Domain Name System (DNS) root zone on June 27.
Sunrise Period edit
The Sunrise Period started July 25, 2001 wherein trademark and service mark holders were able to reserve their brand names. To be able to ensure fairness, Afilias implemented registration via four queues of a randomized round robin system. The Sunrise period ended on August 27 2001 and a quiet testing and evaluation was conducted. On August 28, entities were given a 120 opportunity to challenge the domain names that were registered during the Sunrise Period. The requirement for entities to register a trademark on the .info domain during the Sunrise Period must own a current trademark or service mark. [5]
Land Rush 2 Period edit
Afilias canceled 17,000 inappropriately registered names in the .ifo domain during the Sunrise period and turned it over to the public. Authorized .info registrars were provided with the lists of the canceled names that are available for registration during the Land Rush 2 Period. The Land Rush Period started on June 2002, one of the processes conducted by Afilias to protect intellectual property.[6]
Significant Milestone edit
On November 2002, 'info TLD reached 1 million registration. Afilias identified that the one millionth name registered was los-angeles-real-estate-search.info that was registered through GoDaddy Software, Inc., one of the leading registrars. [7]
On March 2004, the first .info TLD International Domain Name (IDN) solution was launched using the German script. The Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim (The German Language Institute in Mannheim, Germany)worked with Afilias in developing appropriate solutions to address the needs of registrants in Germany and its surrounding areasusing the umlaut characters in compliance with the ICANN standards for IDN solutions.[8]
In 2006, the .info TLD has expanded offering IDN solutions in eight additional language scripts which include include: Polish (PL), Swedish SV), Danish (DA), Hungarian (HU), Icelandic (IS), Latvian (LV), Lithuanian (LT), and Korean (KO). During the same year, Afilias also announced the .info Award, a competition to find the best .info website and offered an EUR 18,000 prize money. AGEV - Arbeitsgemeinschaft Eingetragener Verein (Working Committee for Registered Clubs and Associations)won .the info Award in 2006.[9]
In 2008 Afilias implemented the .info Anti Abuse Policy which prohibits phishing, e-mail spam and other types of spam, the willful distribution of malware, the use of botnets and fast-flux hosting, distribution of child pornography, illegal access to other computers or networks, and other illegal or fraudulent actions. Any websites caught doing abusive activities will be reported to authorities and Afilias emphasized that it has the option to removed them from the .info domain space.
The info Site Rater feature was launched in 2009 allowing visitors to the directory to rate their favorite websites on a scale of 1 to 5. The Top rated sites will be showcased on a special “Top 10 .info page."
Based on the 2010 .info annual report, at present the .info TLD remains remains the leading new TLD with 6.8 million registrants.It is now offered by 360 registrars. North America (58%) comprises the largest .info registrants followed by Europe (27%) and Asia Pacific (12%).