.pw

Status:	Active
country:	Palau
Manager:	Micronesia Investment and Development Corporation
Registry Provider:	CentralNic
Registrations:	250,000+
Date Implemented:	1997
Type:	ccTLD
More information:

.pw is the ccTLD for Palau. It is managed by the Micronesia Investment and Development Corporation.

Delegation History

In 1997, the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute (which then performed the IANA functions) approved a request for establishment of the .pw ccTLD. Upon its establishment in May 1997, the .pw ccTLD was delegated by Dr. Jon Postel (then in charge of the IANA function at the Information Sciences Institute) to Rakel Kamigaki, of PW Domain Registry, as administrative contact, and Hostmaster, of NetNames as the technical contact.

In late 2002, ICANN received an expression of interest to redelegate the .pw ccTLD to the Micronesia Investment & Development Corporation (MIDCORP). The request was supported by the Palau Government.

Rules and Restrictions

It is an Open Use ccTLD. Anyone in the world can register a .pw domain name, there are no country restrictions and no documents required.

Reserved Domain Names

.PW Registry shall reserve and/or restrict certain domain names. This Reserved list of domain names shall generally consists of:

• ICANN and IANA related names;
• list of existing TLDs (gTLDs and ccTLDs alike);
• one and two character Domain Names, including all combinations of letters and digits;
• all labels with hyphens in the third and fourth character positions (e.g., "fz–1k5n4h4b" or "lm–kapr62n"), except for IDNs;
• geographical place names, references to any region and names of Chiefs of the Republic of Palau;
• the short form (in English) of all country and territory names contained on the ISO 3166-1 list, as updated from time to time, including the European Union, which is exceptionally reserved on the ISO 3166-1 list;
• the label “EXAMPLE” shall be reserved at the second level and at all other levels within the TLD at which Registry Operator makes registrations;
• domain names used by the .pq Registry for the day-to-day operations, or for other business or strategic purposes;
• Premium Domains which includes a set of names reserved by the Registry for allocation through means other than the first-come, first-served registrations.

Second-Level Domains

The second-level domains for use within in Palau are ".co.pw", ".ne.pw", ".or.pw", ".ed.pw", ".go.pw" and ".belau.pw".

Usage and Marketing

Originally, .pw was a restricted ccTLD for residents in Palau.

.pw is now marketed as a gTLD, meaning "Professional Web". Directi rebranded .pw as "The Professional Web", relaunching it as an open ccTLD available for global registration. The domain was relaunched in October 2012, in the midst of ICANN 45 in Toronto.

.pw is trying to compete directly with .com, stating that one has "an unlimited number of domain names to choose from, an opportunity that is no longer available in our top level domains such as .com" and "while .pw is meant for individuals and businesses that want to establish a professional presence in cyberspace, .pw will technically function just like any other .com domain name."

A few months after the string was made available to the general public, spammers were widely abusing the domain, causing security companies to issue warnings to customers or block the domain wholesale. Directi stated that it has a zero-tolerance policy to spam and is fighting back, including deactivating about 5,000 domains for breaching its anti-abuse policy. The company also noted that such levels of spam are commonplace since spammers generally start using a new TLDs immediately while the general public is slower to register new TLDs.

Premium Names

The first sales of premium names were announced in March 2013, "w.pw" and "p.pw" sold for $8,000 each, both to the same buyer. It was announced at the same time that the Landrush Period was extended to accommodate a growing list of registrars and their interest in the extension.

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority

Country code top-level domain

International Standards Organization

Top-Level Domain