.dk is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Denmark. The supervision of the .dk top-level domain is handled exclusively by Punktum dk.[2] Any new .dk domain name has to be applied for via an approved registrar. Then the domain name applicant can ask the registrar to manage their domain name or have it managed directly by the Punktum dk. Registrations of domain names with the characters æ, ø, å, ö, ä, ü, é, and ẞ are also allowed.[3]
The country code top-level domain .dk was created July 14, 1987, at ARPA Network Information Center, Stanford Research Institute (SRI-NIC). The Danish UNIX User Group (DKUUG) at Datalogisk Institut, Københavns Universitet (DIKU) received management of the .dk domain on the DKnet, at that time an informal name used for the UUCP network used at DIKU and other places in Denmark.[2][4][5] The name DKnet has been in use since at least 1985.[6]
In mid-1988 DKnet was connected to the emerging DENet, the government-sponsored research network established in late 1987 now known as forskningsnettet, run and maintained by UNI-C.[7]
In November 1987 DKUUG made a name agreement ("navneaftalen") with the coordinators of the three other networks then working in Denmark, a national experimental X.400 net (EAN from University of British Columbia), EARN and DECnet, concerning the .dk domain.[8] They agreed to share it, hiding from the users which network they were connected to, and nullifying the use of pseudo-domains like .uucp or second-level domains like gov.uk, thereby creating a practice that has been enforced ever since, and also applied in other countries.
By early 1992 UNI-C via DENet (an acronym for "Danish Educational Network") serviced all the Universities in Denmark, and DIKU had no need for DKnet anymore. Thus DKUUG, with DKnet, moved to Symbion Science Park where they received their own international lines and started to lease these to companies, and modem connections to private consumers. The growing business quickly overshadowed the organization's own economy, forcing the creation of a separate company. In 1993, DKnet ApS, a genuine ISP and Denmark's first, was established as a limited liability company (ApS).[9][10][11]
In 1996, with the establishment of the Danish Research Network, the name "DENet" was used for the commercial part of the network and changed to be an acronym for "Dansk Erhvervs Net", i.e. Danish Business Network.[citation needed]
Tele Danmark takes over
On February 15, 1996, DKnet ApS, including the .dk domain management, was sold by DKUUG to Tele Danmark (now TDC) at the price of 20 million DKK.[12][13][14][15] Acknowledging the possible conflict of interest of a company (Tele Denmark) behind both a commercial ISP (DKnet A/S, now a stock company) and also in control of the .dk domain management (Punktum dk), a group of tele- and internet companies, 28 in all, including TeliaSonera, Global One, Deutsche Telekom, IBM, assembled five days after the purchase in order to gain control of the Punktum dk function.[citation needed]
Tele Danmark initially refused, and the group together formed the organisation Foreningen af Internetleverandører (FIL), and threatened to go directly to IANA to counter what they saw as a bona fide Tele Danmark monopoly. Tele Denmark agreed and FIL became the authority registered by IANA for the .dk domain, while the nominal and practical administration remained the responsibility of DKnet A/S. In June 1996 they signed a one-year contract about the practice and rules concerning the .dk domain, which would later be renewed for another year.[citation needed]
Race for the .dk domain
On January 15, 1997, at 15:00, FIL loosened the restrictions for registering a .dk domain name. Where one had previously needed a valid reason to register one, all restrictions were now removed, creating an unprecedented run on .dk domain names. By the end of 1996 there were only 6,500 registered .dk domains, by February 1, 1997, this had more than doubled and at the end of 1997 there were 41,000 registered .dk domains. This in turn created a series of legal actions, which would last well into the 2000s, not only against FIL's own members, who were accused of using inside knowledge to register large numbers of "good" domain names quickly, but also against individuals who were accused of cyber squatting.
In December 1997 Tele Danmark announced that from the beginning of 1998 they would start collecting a yearly fee (of 340 DKK excluding VAT) for every registered domain name via Punktum dk. This caused a stir in FIL's members, as they had not been informed. While there had been talks about some sort of fee to Punktum dk to cover its expenses, no review of Punktum dk's actual budget was available since it was financially all but a part of Tele Danmark. This was therefore seen by FIL as abuse of power and profit making via the supposedly non-profit Punktum dk organization. It was later revealed that it was the board of directors of FIL (later fired) that had granted Tele Danmark the right to set the price that they wanted, without asking its members.
As a consequence of this, Tele Danmark announced in March 1998 that the commercial parts in DKnet A/S would be moved to Tele Denmark Internet and DKnet A/S, with its only remaining asset, Punktum dk, would be renamed to "Punktum dk A/S", and put up for sale. Tele Danmark encouraged a larger forum or group comprising more than just telecom and internet companies (like FIL) to form and buy it, because the Internet now had a much broader appeal. This caused yet another stir in FIL who flat-out rejected that Tele Denmark had the right to sell something it did not own.
DIFO takes over
In October 1998 FIL sent a letter to Tele Danmark ending the contract and agreement that had been signed back in June 1996 (renewed in 1997). The letter also stated that FIL wanted to take over the running of Punktum dk themselves. Tele Danmark denied that FIL could do this. In November 1998 FIL, on the invitation of the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, called a meeting between all actors on the Danish internet, companies as well as users, under the banner "ID MoU" ("Internet Danmark Memorandum of Understanding") in order to establish a long-term agreement on the administration of the .dk domain. The result of "ID MoU" was that a number of institutions and organizations established a self-owning institution named Dansk INTERNET Forum (DIFO) on July 1, 1999, which with the help of external investment bought "Punktum dk A/S" in December 1999.
IPv6
Punktum dk has offered IPv6 glue records for second-level domains since April 4, 2008, when the first DNS provider had IPv6 glue records added in the TLD.[16] IPv6 was enabled at the transport layer to TLD nameservers a few years prior to that. Just days prior to the World IPv6 day, Punktum dk added an IPv6 address in DNS for their web server and that of the web server of its owner, DIFO.
DNSSEC
After the DNS root zone was signed in mid-July 2010, the .DK-zone was officially signed using NSEC3 on July 23, 2010, and the root zone was updated July 26, 2010, to include the corresponding DS-record. Since August 1, 2010, customers' DS-records have been included in the DK-zone.
Second level domains
In general most companies and people register their desired domain name at the second level, e.g. company.dk and lastname.dk.
Third level domains
Third level domains are allocated by second level domain owners. The registry does not run, recommend nor endorse any general second level domains, such as .com.dk, for third parties, and they are generally not seen.
Oldest .dk domains
The oldest .dk domains still registered in Punktum dk's database, are the domains dkuug.dk, diku.dk, bk.dk, ibt.dk, ifad.dk, lego.dk, mainz.dk and nordita.dk which were all registered in 1987 when .dk was registered. With the registration of .dk a dual naming with both .uucp and .dk names was introduced. Of these, diku.dk and ibt.dk can be said to be the oldest names, as these were the initial names on the Danish UUCP network started 2 January 1983.[citation needed]
New name
In April 2023, DK Hostmaster changed its name to Punktum dk.[17][18]
A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in lower levels, it is the last part of the domain name, that is, the last non-empty label of a fully qualified domain name. For example, in the domain name www.example.com, the top-level domain is .com. Responsibility for management of most top-level domains is delegated to specific organizations by the ICANN, an Internet multi-stakeholder community, which operates the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and is in charge of maintaining the DNS root zone.
In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. Domain names are used in various networking contexts and for application-specific naming and addressing purposes. In general, a domain name identifies a network domain or an Internet Protocol (IP) resource, such as a personal computer used to access the Internet, or a server computer.
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS), media types, and other Internet Protocol–related symbols and Internet numbers.
A domain name registry is a database of all domain names and the associated registrant information in the top level domains of the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet that enables third party entities to request administrative control of a domain name. Most registries operate on the top-level and second-level of the DNS.
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An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed in software applications, in whole or in part, in non-Latin script or alphabet or in the Latin alphabet-based characters with diacritics or ligatures. These writing systems are encoded by computers in multibyte Unicode. Internationalized domain names are stored in the Domain Name System (DNS) as ASCII strings using Punycode transcription.
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A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code. All ASCII ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all two-letter top-level domains are ccTLDs.
.ae is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet for the United Arab Emirates. It is administered by .aeDA which is part of the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority of UAE (TDRA).
.br is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Brazil. It was administered by the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee until 2005 when it started being administered by Brazilian Network Information Center. A local contact is required for any registration. Registrations of domain names with Portuguese characters are also accepted.
The domain name arpa is a top-level domain (TLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. It is used predominantly for the management of technical network infrastructure. Prominent among such functions are the subdomains in-addr.arpa and ip6.arpa, which provide namespaces for reverse DNS lookup of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, respectively.
Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of every fully qualified domain name. They are called generic for historical reasons; initially, they were contrasted with country-specific TLDs in RFC 920.
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.vn is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Vietnam.
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The domain names example.com, example.net, example.org, and example.edu are second-level domain names in the Domain Name System of the Internet. They are reserved by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) at the direction of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as special-use domain names for documentation purposes. The domain names are used widely in books, tutorials, sample network configurations, and generally as examples for the use of domain names. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) operates web sites for these domains with content that reflects their purpose.
The domain name .local is a special-use domain name reserved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) so that it may not be installed as a top-level domain in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. As such it is similar to the other special domain names, such as .localhost. However, .local has since been designated for use in link-local networking, in applications of multicast DNS (mDNS) and zero-configuration networking (zeroconf) so that DNS service may be established without local installations of conventional DNS infrastructure on local area networks.
The Danish UNIX systems User Group is a computer user group around UNIX, which was the first Internet provider in Denmark and which created and maintained the .dk internet domain for Denmark. Founded 18 November 1983, DKUUG is a primary advisor on the Danish UNIX and Open Standards use. The group is active in the standards processes for UNIX, POSIX, the Internet, the World Wide Web, and Open Document Format.
↑ Simonsen, Keld Jörn. "The Danish Connection"(PDF). Australian UNIX systems User Group Newsletter, Vol. 10, no. 2. AUUG. pp.60–62. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
↑ "DKUUG Nyt"(PDF). Dkuug NYT (in Danish). 13. September 1987. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2016-09-27. Retrieved 2016-09-25.
↑ "DKUUG Nyt"(PDF). Dkuug NYT (in Danish). 4. November 1985. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2016-09-27. Retrieved 2016-09-25.
↑ "DKUUG Nyt"(PDF). Dkuug NYT (in Danish). 16. September 1988. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2016-09-27. Retrieved 2016-09-25.
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