.info
 | |
| Industry: | TLD |
| Founded: | 2001 |
| Headquarters: | Dublin |
| Country: | Ireland |
| Website: | http://www.info.info |
| Key People | |
| 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]
History
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
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]