generic top-level domain
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 ev ...
for
Brussels
Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
,
Belgium
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is a global multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization headquartered in the United States responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several dat ...
, the governing body for domain names, decided organisations could request their own top-level domain name (TLD) . Besides the existing country codes such as .be and generic extensions like .com, it became possible to have extensions such as .ibm, .shop of .limburg. The first requests could be submitted to ICANN on 12 January 2012. This extension was mostly interesting for
brands
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...
, but also for geographic, linguistic and ethnic organisations and institutions. All these newly created top-level domains are considered 'generic Top Level Domains'(gTLD), this is in contrast to national codes, which also means they are administered differently. DNS.be immediately became a candidate to manage the geographic gTLD's.
At the start of 2012, the
Flemish Government
The Flemish Government ( ) is the executive branch of the Flemish Community and the Flemish Region of Belgium. It consists of a government cabinet, headed by the Minister-President of Flanders, Minister-President and accountable to the Flemish Par ...
en Brussels Government respectively appointed the management of gTLD's .vlaanderen and .brussels to DNS.be. DNS.be created and submitted the request to ICANN. After approval, they will take on the responsibility of technical and commercial exploitation of the domains for 10 years. The chosen partnership was one of concession of services.
In 2012, three applications were made to ICANN for generic top-level domains on behalf of Belgium. These places were raffled off, landing .gent on the 1,021st place, .vlaanderen on the 1,416th place and .brussels in 1,518th place. Because ICANN handles about 1,000 applications a year, people were already anticipating a 2014 inauguration..
On February 7, 2014, DNS Belgium (since changed its name) signed the contract with ICANN for the management of .vlaanderen and .brussels
ICANN announced on March 21 that year that the applications for .vlaanderen and .brussels had passed the technical tests.
On June 18, 2014, ICANN announced that .vlaanderen and .brussels have been delegated. Concretely, this means that they have been added to the
DNS root zone
The DNS root zone is the top-level DNS zone in the hierarchical namespace of the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet.
Before October 1, 2016, the root zone had been overseen by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ...
. As a result, the first URLs with these new extensions also exist: nic.vlaanderen and nic.brussels.
On July 9, 2014, the approval came for the startup information by ICANN. (The information about the different launch phases and their timing)
The schedule for the phases was:
* Phase for brandholders: 01/09/2014 > 01/10/2014
* Phase for local governments and organisations: 02/10/2014 > 03/11/2014
* Phase for private companies: 13/11/2014 > 15/12/2014
* Landrush 16/12/2014 > 15/01/2015
* Free registration from 20/01/2015 onwards
List of Internet top-level domains
This list of Internet top-level domains (TLD) contains top-level domains, which are those domains in the DNS root zone of the Domain Name System of the Internet. A list of the top-level domains by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) ...