The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces and numerical spaces of the Internet, ensuring the network's stable and secure operation. ICANN performs the actual technical maintenance work of the Central Internet Address pools and DNS root zone registries pursuant to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) function contract. The contract regarding the IANA stewardship functions between ICANN and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the United States Department of Commerce ended on October 1, 2016, formally transitioning the functions to the global multistakeholder community.
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. 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 it represents an Internet Protocol (IP) resource, such as a personal computer used to access the Internet, a server computer hosting a website, or the web site itself or any other service communicated via the Internet. As of 2017, 330.6 million domain names had been registered.
The domain name .org is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) of the Domain Name System (DNS) used on the Internet. The name is truncated from organization. It was one of the original domains established in 1985, and has been operated by the Public Interest Registry since 2003. The domain was originally "intended as the miscellaneous TLD for organizations that didn't fit anywhere else." It is commonly used by non-profit organizations, open-source projects, and communities, but is an open domain that can be used by anyone. The number of registered domains in org has increased from fewer than one million in the 1990s, to ten million in 2012, and held steady between ten and eleven million since then.
.eu is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the European Union (EU). Launched on 7 December 2005, the domain is available for any person, company or organization based in the European Union. This was extended to the European Economic Area in 2014, after the regulation was incorporated into the EEA Agreement, and hence is also available for any person, company or organization based in Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. The TLD is administered by EURid, a consortium originally consisting of the national ccTLD registry operators of Belgium, Sweden, and Italy, joined later by the national registry operator of the Czech Republic. Trademark owners were able to submit registrations through a sunrise period, in an effort to prevent cybersquatting. Full registration started on 7 April 2006.
The domain name info is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. The name is derived from information, although registration requirements do not prescribe any particular purpose.
A domain name registrar is a company that manages the reservation of Internet domain names. A domain name registrar must be accredited by a generic top-level domain (gTLD) registry or a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registry. A registrar operates in accordance with the guidelines of the designated domain name registries.
.ie is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) which corresponds with the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code for Ireland. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) list the Computing Services Computer Centre of University College Dublin as its sponsoring organisation for the .ie domain. Since 2000 the business of administrating the domain registry has been handled by IE Domain Registry Limited. Domain name registration is open to individuals located in, or with a significant connection with, any part of the island of Ireland. In 2006, .irish was a proposed new generic top-level domain (gTLD) for the global Irish community.
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.
.be is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Belgium. The domain became active in 1989 and was administrated by Pierre Verbaeten of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. In 2000, the control of the TLD was transferred to DNS Belgium. As of June 2013 there are 1,392,477 registered domains.
.nz is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for New Zealand. It is administered by InternetNZ, with oversight and dispute resolution handled by the Domain Name Commission Limited (DNCL). Registrations are processed via authorised registrars. As of February 2021 there were 724,001 registered .nz domains.
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is the organization that manages the .ca country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Canada. Its offices are located at 979 Bank Street in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. CIRA sets the policies and agendas that support Canada's Internet community and Canada's involvement in international Internet governance. It is a member-driven organization with membership open to all that hold a .ca domain. As of January 2021, there were more than 3 million active .ca domains.
.mu is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Mauritius. It is administered by the Mauritius Network Information Centre and registrations are processed via accredited registrars. Some registrars market it as the .music and .museum TLD.
The domain name .tel is a top-level domain (TLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. It was approved by ICANN as a sponsored top-level domain, and is operated by Telnic. Telnic announced in January 2011 that over 300,000 domains had been registered since the start of general availability on 24 March 2009. A substantial drop of mostly IDN .tels occurred at the beginning of 2014 - the current total registered .tels as of 21 July 2016 is 98,516.
A geographic top-level domain is any of an unofficial group of top-level domains in the Domain Name System of the Internet using the name of or invoking an association with a geographical, geopolitical, ethnic, linguistic or cultural community. The IANA does not recognize these domains as their own group within the Root Zone Database, rather classifying them as generic top-level domains.
.biz is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet. It is intended for registration of domains to be used by businesses. The name is a phonetic spelling of the first syllable of business.
Domain registration is the process of acquiring a domain name from a domain name registrar.
The Trademark Clearinghouse is a database of validated and registered trademarks established by ICANN to assist trademark holders prevent infringing behavior in the Domain Name System. In combination with the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS), it is the second significant attempt by ICANN to handle the "Trademark Dilemma". The first attempt was the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy.
Uniregistry is a large retail domain name registrar and web services provider; as well as a domain name registry that administers generic top-level domains. In February 2013, the related company Uniregistrar Corporation became an ICANN-accredited registrar and launched under the licensed Uniregistry brand name in 2014. Uniregistry's acquisition by GoDaddy was announced in February 2020.
.vlaanderen is a generic top-level domain for Flanders, Belgium first introduced in 2014.
