.br is the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...
country code
Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science ...
top-level domain
A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the ...
(
ccTLD
A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It ...
) for
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's List of countries and dependencie ...
. 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.
With the exception of universities, the
second-level domain is fixed and selected from a list that defines the category. For example, is in the
art (music, folklore ''etc.'') category, and is in the
non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active i ...
category. Institutions of
tertiary education
Tertiary education, also referred to as third-level, third-stage or post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank, for example, defines tertiary education as including univers ...
were allowed to use the
ccSLD , although some use and others (mainly public universities) use . There are also some other few exceptions that were allowed to use the second level domain until the end of 2000. As of April 2010, most domain registrations ignore categories and register in the domain, which has over 90% of all registered domains. The (Judiciary), and (banks) domains have mandatory
DNSSEC
The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) are a suite of extension specifications by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for securing data exchanged in the Domain Name System
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical a ...
use.
History
Created and delegated to Brazil in 1989 by
Jon Postel, initially the domain was operated manually by
Registro.br and administered by the
Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP). Originally, only researchers and institutions to which they belonged had the interest and ability to adopt the new system and register domains under .br.
At the time, networks prevalent in the Brazilian academic setting were the
BITNET
BITNET was a co-operative U.S. university computer network founded in 1981 by Ira Fuchs at the City University of New York
The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the public university system of New York City
...
("Because It's Time NETwork"), the
HEPnet ("High Energy Physics Network") and the
UUCP
UUCP is an acronym
An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in '' NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but somet ...
("Unix-to-Unix Copy Program"). As such, even before Brazil officially connected to the Internet in 1991, the .br domain was used to identify the machines participating in networks already in use by academics.
In 1995 the
Brazilian Internet Steering Committee ( pt, Comitê Gestor da Internet no Brasil, or simply CGI.br) was created with an objective to coordinate the allocation of Internet addresses (IPs) and the registration of .br domain names. There were 851 domains registered with the Brazilian
DNS by the beginning of 1996, thereafter experiencing rapid growth with the mass arrival of companies, Internet providers and media onto the Internet. The registration system was automated in 1997 and was developed using open source software.
In 2005, CGI.br created its own executive arm, the
Brazilian Network Information Center ( pt, Núcleo de Informação e Coordenação do Ponto BR, or simply NIC.br), which currently serves in both administrative and operational capacity for the registry.
In 2017, accounts associated with DNS records of Brazilian banks were hacked.
Kaspersky's researchers pointed out to a vulnerability in NIC.br's website and suggested its infrastructure had been compromised. NIC's director at the time, Frederico Neves, denied that NIC.br was "hacked", although NIC.br admitted the vulnerability.
Domain registry
To register any domains under .br, it is necessary to enter into contact with Registro.br. Entities legally established in Brazil as a company ("pessoa jurídica") or a physical person ("profissional liberal" and "pessoas físicas") that has a contact within Brazil can register domains. Foreign companies that have a power-of-attorney legally established in Brazil can also do it by followin
specific rules
The registration of domains with special Portuguese characters (à, á, â, ã, é, ê, í, ó, ô, õ, ú, ü and ç) is accepted since 2005.
/ref>
Syntactic rules for .br domains
* Minimum of 2 and maximum of 26 characters, not including the category. For example, in the field XXXX.COM.BR, this limitation relates to the XXXX.
* Valid characters are -Z, 0-9 the hyphen, and the following accented characters: à, á, â, ã, é, ê, í, ó, ô, õ, ú, ü, ç.
* Domains cannot contain only numbers.
* To maintain the integrity of the registry, Registro.br sets up an equivalence mapping to compare domain names with and without accented characters. The mapping is done by converting accented characters and the cedilla for their non-accented versions and "c", respectively, and discards hyphens. A new domain will only be allowed to be registered when there is no equivalent to a pre-existing domain, or when the applicant is the same entity that owns the domain equivalent.
:Note: Specifically for the domain .NOM.BR, it is necessary to choose two names, i.e.: NAME1.NAME2.NOM.BR.
Usage statistics
.br is the most common Portuguese language
Portuguese ( or, in full, ) is a western Romance language of the Indo-European language family, originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right becau ...
Web site suffix,[As of 18 August 2021, Google showed 2.76 billion pages fo]
site: .br
351 million fo
site: .pt
(Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a Sovereign state, country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southern Europe, Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes ...
) and 6.16 million fo
site: .ao
(Angola
, national_anthem = " Angola Avante"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capital = Luanda
, religion =
, religion_year = 2020
, religion_ref =
, coordin ...
)
Portuguese pages
in the .com domain were 2.19 billion. surpassing all other Portuguese-speaking countries' TLDs as well as in popularity.
Second-level domains
Direct registration
In 1991, it was decided that universities and research institutes would be allowed second-level .br domains directly. For example: Federal University of Rio de Janeiro got ''ufrj.br''; University of São Paulo got ''usp.br''; National Institute for Space Research got ''inpe.br''; and so on.
In late 2000, the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee reported abuse in this system, and called for all institutions directly under .br to be moved to .edu.br – so, for example, ''ufrj.br'' would become ''ufrj.edu.br''. During a meeting in early 2001, however, the Committee decided it would be of public interest to not move every second-level domain as to avoid confusion, but instead established rules regarding their registration:
* No longer accepting automatic registration of second-level domains, and evaluating every request for one individually;
* Creating edu.br, and forwarding requests from education and research institutions to it;
* Concession to education and research institutes that already had a second-level .br domain, as long as its usage is appropriate and that domain name is related to the institution's name or acronym. Domains approved are automatically duplicated under edu.br as well, and both may exist concurrently – for example, the still existing ''ufrj.br'' also has a registered ''ufrj.edu.br'', although the latter is not used;
* Other institutions not approved above must be migrated permanently to edu.br (but would be given sufficient time for the transition).
As of August 2021, Registro.br reports 1207 domains registered directly under .br.
Predefined domains
As of August 2021, there are 140 different second-level domains of .br under which custom domains can be registered, and they are divided into six categories: "Generic", "Cities", "Universities", "Professionals", "Natural person
In jurisprudence, a natural person (also physical person in some Commonwealth countries, or natural entity) is a person (in legal meaning, i.e., one who has its own legal personality
Legal capacity is a quality denoting either the legal ap ...
s" and " Legal persons". They are the following:
Special second-level domains
From 2000 until 2009, during election cycles, electoral candidates could register domains under CAN.br, with the format '' amenumber].can.br'' – where the name is the registered candidate name, and the number is the identification number for that candidate in the election (related to the Political party, party's identification number). The second-level domain was in a category of its own, called "natural persons, special".
As an example, during the 2004 elections for mayor of Aracaju:
* Marcelo Déda had the website ''deda13.can.br'' (his surname and Worker's Party's identification number, 13);
* Susana Azevedo had the website ''susana23.can.br'' (her first name and Cidadania's identification number, 23);
* Jorge Alberto had the website ''jorgealberto15.can.br'' (his name and MDB's identification number, 15).
Domains were free for registered candidates. Additionally, domains were automatically cancelled at the end of the first round if the candidate lost, and remaining ones were cancelled after the end of the second round.
No new .can.br domains have been registered since 2009.
Agencies
There are multiple agencies registered directly under .br, as second-level domains, that aren't higher education or research institutions. The following list might not be exhaustive:
Most of these agencies are subsidiaries of CGI.br and, as such, they follow a similar corporate identity. The "logos" are combinations of the names of the agencies with the logo for .br, all of which are simply typed out with Brandon Schoech (Tepid Monkey)'s freeware
Freeware is software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
At the lowest programming level, ...
font "Qhytsdakx":
File:DotBr logo.svg, Logo for .br, a slightly modified "br" in green
File:Cgi.br.svg, Logo for CGI.br
File:NIC.br logo.svg, Logo for NIC.br
File:Ix.br.svg, Logo for IX.br
File:DotBr domain logo.svg, Logo for Registro.br
File:IPv6.br logo.svg, Logo for IPv6.br
Networks
There are multiple networks registered directly under .br, usually of academic nature. Again, this list may not be exhaustive:
See also
* Internet in Brazil
* .bom
* .rio
References
External links
IANA .br whois information
Registro.br : Brazil's official registry administrator
for .br
.br Registration
TepidMonkey's archived website
(source of the font used in the logos, "Qhytsdakx")
{{DEFAULTSORT:Br
Communications in Brazil
Country code top-level domains
Internet in Brazil
Computer-related introductions in 1989
sv:Toppdomän#B