Positions itself for global use like a personal namespace; can be registered and used for any purpose. Used by businesses in Maine, the Middle East, and Montenegro and is popular for domain hacks.
Registration restrictions
None
Structure
Second-level registrations available worldwide; third-level registrations under certain second-level names available within Montenegro
The .me registry is operated by doMEn,[1] which won a contract to do so after a bid process conducted by the government of Montenegro and was launched through various accredited registrars around the world.
Google treats .me as a generic top-level domain (gTLD) because "users and website owners frequently see [the domain] as being more generic than country-targeted."[2]
Introduction
Montenegro declared its independence from Serbia and Montenegro on 3 June 2006, after a majority of Montenegrins supported independence in a national referendum. As a part of that country, constituently, Montenegro had unofficially been using the .cg.yusecond-level domain; Montenegrin Authorities used .mn.yu subdomain, while the .cstop-level domain (TLD) had been assigned to Serbia and Montenegro in 2003 following the breakup of Yugoslavia, but remained unused. Montenegro was assigned the ISO 3166-1 two-letter code "ME", which was allocated by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in September 2006[3] (most other possible abbreviations of Montenegro (MO, MN, MT, MG and MR) and its Montenegrin name Crna Gora (CG) having already been taken).
In September 2007, ICANN delegated the .me domain to the Government of Montenegro,[4] with the former .yu domain to be operated temporarily by the .rs domain registry (Serbian National Register of Internet Domain Names) until its eventual abolition on or before 30 September 2009. Delegation of root name servers was approved by IANA,[5] establishing .me. The ".me" domain became active on 24 September 2007, and a "Public Invitation for selection of the Agent for domain registration under the national Internet domain of Montenegro" was posted on 14 November. doMEn d.o.o., as a Montenegro-based joint venture whose partners are Afilias, GoDaddy.com, and ME-net d.o.o., was selected as the new registry operator.
On 6 May 2008, the General Sunrise period for the .me registry began for all eligible trademark holders worldwide, and on 16 July 2008, registration was made available to everyone for all .me domains at various registrars.
The domain .me was assigned to Montenegro as a country code after it became an independent nation in June 2006. However, the Montenegro government decided .me would be operated as a generic name after considering the potential worldwide appeal for the domain.[6]
Third-level registrations are available to Montenegrin citizens and companies in the following zones:
.co.me – unlimited registration, but appropriate for corporations
.net.me – unlimited registration, but appropriate for providers of Internet services
.org.me – unlimited registration, but appropriate for civil organizations and associations
.edu.me – Educational institutions, such as primary and high schools
.ac.me – Academic and post-secondary organizations such as universities; University of Montenegro has ucg.ac.me as its primary domain
.gov.me – State and Government authorities
.its.me or .priv.me – unlimited registration, but appropriate for personal use
Sunrise, land rush, and open registration periods
On 6 May 2008, the .me registry opened the sunrise period for all eligible trademark holders anywhere in the world.
Throughout June and July 2008, multiple land rush applications were received, which resulted in more than 2,500 land rush auctions that were held during July and August 2008. Go Live was opened on 17 July 2008 when registrations were made available for all unreserved .me domains via various registrars.
During the .me land rush auction period, more than US$2,000,000 was generated with names like insure.me and sync.me going to the highest bidder.
At the beginning of August 2008, 100,000 .me domain names were registered.[7] Sources say part of the worldwide appeal for the .me domain is the marketing aspect.
In 2008 in terms of the number of Web pages indexed by Google among all TLDs, .me sites have enjoyed the fastest growth with more than 50% a month. In the same year, .me topped its potential rivals .mobi and .asia in Alexa Internet top one million websites with 341 .me sites versus 233 .mobi sites and 86 .asia sites. Extra potential of .me is revealed considering the fact that .mobi was launched two years before .me and .asia four months before .me.
By the middle of February 2009, 200,000 .me domain names were registered.[8]
On 15 May 2009, the number of registered .me domain names rose to 250,000.[9]
By 2010, over 320,000 .me domains had been purchased, making it the fastest-selling top-level domain in history.[11]
By March 30, 2016, the .me domain space had reached over one million domain registrations.[12]
Known hacks
Most .me domain names were purchased as domain hacks in English and, to a lesser extent, Dutch; 71% of names were applied for by applicants in the United States.[13] Because of the possibility of owning pure verb and pronoun combinations, their prices have stayed high: during the sunrise period, insure.me went for $68,005, and judge.me sold for $8000 in 2011.
Me subdomain names must be between 3 and 63 characters in length,[15] but a few exceptions have been granted, mainly for URL shortening purposes. Examples of shortened domain names include:
Yahoo! was using me.me for its project Yahoo! Meme, but the domain name was taken back by the .me registry when the company closed down the portal.[citation needed]
Prior to the introduction of .me, the most used domain in Montenegro was the second-level domain .cg.yu under .yu, the Internet domain name of Montenegrin Internet service providerT-Crnogorski Telekom, which was allowed to such organisations. The abbreviation "CG" was used because of the native name for Montenegro, Crna Gora. When .yu TLD was phased out, all e-mail addresses ending with @cg.yu were replaced with @t-com.me, and the Web sites moved, variously, mostly under .me.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a global multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization head-quartered in the United States responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces and numerical spaces of the Internet, ensuring the Internet'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 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.
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.
The domain name is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet. It is intended for use by individuals for representation of their personal name, nicknames, screen names, pseudonyms, or other types of identification labels.
Domain name speculation, popular as domaining in professional jargon, is the practice of identifying and registering or acquiring generic Internet domain names as an investment with the intent of selling them later for a profit.
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).
.yu was the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) that was assigned to SFR Yugoslavia in 1989 and was mainly used by Serbia and Montenegro and its two successor states. After Montenegro and Serbia acquired separate .me and .rs domains in 2007, a transition period started, and the .yu domain finally expired in 2010.
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.
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 March 2023, there were more than 3.3 million active .ca domains.
.um was the Internet country code top-level domain for the United States Minor Outlying Islands. It was administered by the United States Minor Outlying Islands Registry. Until late 2006 USMIR was housed at the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute (USC-ISI), which was the original administrator of .us prior to NeuStar absorbing that role.
.co is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to Colombia.
The domain name pro is a generic top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. Its name is derived from professional, indicating its intended use by certified professionals.
A sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) is 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, alongside country-code top-level domains (ccTLD) and generic top-level domains (gTLD).
.in is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for India. It was made available in 1989, four years after original generic top-level domains such as .com, .net and the country code like .us. It is currently administered by the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI).
.so is the internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Somalia. After a long absence, the .so domain was officially relaunched on November 1, 2010, by .SO Registry, which is regulated by the nation's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. It was launched through various accredited registrars around the world.
The domain name mobi is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. Its name is derived from the adjective mobile.
In the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy, a second-level domain is a domain that is directly below a top-level domain (TLD). For example, in example.com, example is the second-level domain of the .com TLD.
.rs is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Serbia. The domain name registry that operates it is the Serbian National Internet Domain Registry (RNIDS). The letters rs stand for Republika Srbija/Република Србија.
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