.ao
| Status: | Active |
| Country: | Angola |
| Introduced: | November 15, 1995 |
| Manager: | Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technologies (MTTI) |
| Registry Provider: | dns.ao |
| Type: | ccTLD |
| Website: | dns.ao |
| Key people: | * Andre Pedro, Administrative Contact
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More information: 
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.ao is the ccTLD for Angola. It is managed by the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technologies (MTTI)[1], in Portuguese, Ministério das Telecomunicações, Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação Social (MINTTICS), through the Instituto do Fomento para a Sociedade de Informação (INFOSI).[2] The official registry is dns.ao.[1]
Delegation History[edit | edit source]
The .ao top-level domain was managed by the Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade Agostinho Neto (the Engineering Faculty of the Agostinho Neto University) when it was initially delegated in the mid-1990's.
In February 2000, Fundação para a Computação Científica Nacional (FCCN), the organization responsible for the management of the .pt (Portugal) top-level domain, began providing technical services for the .ao top-level domain and was listed as its technical contact in the IANA Root Zone Database.
In May 2013, after a restructuring of FCCN's mission and responsibilities, a new entity named Associação DNS.PT (DNS.PT) was created to manage the .pt top-level domain and provide technical services for several other ccTLDs, including .ao.
In October 2014, the IANA Root Zone Database was updated to reflect the .ao technical contact change to DNS.PT.
On January 25, 2018, through Presidential Decree No. 16/18, the mission of the MTTI was established as the entity responsible for the policy and strategy of telecommunications and information technologies in Angola.
On August, 21 2018, Presidential Decree No. 107/18 approved the transfer of the management and operation of the .ao top-level domain to the MTTI. On October 1, 2018, MTTI Decree No. 4820 created a working committee for transferring management of the .ao top-level domain to MTTI in order to “strengthen the security and protection of the digital sovereignty of the Angolan State in cyberspace, with technical and administrative measures”. The committee was coordinated by Manuel Gomes da Conceição Homem, the proposed administrative contact, and composed of five members including the General Secretary, the Director of the Legal Office, the National Director of Telecommunications, the National Director of the Information Society and Meteorology and the Director of the National Institute for the Development of the Information Society.
On March 16, 2020, MTTI initiated a request for the transfer of the .ao top-level domain.[3]
Rules and Restrictions[edit | edit source]
Anyone can request the registration of an available name under the .ao domain.
Registration requests become definitive 96 hours after their validation, during which time a panel of experts may determine if assigning the domain name to the applicant conflicts with national interests, is confusingly similar to registered trademarks of other entities, carries a pejorative meaning, is registered in the name of entities that are not the legitimate holders of the respective trademarks, or involves registrations made individually or in bulk that are not used to convey content.[4]