.brussels is a

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 eve ...

for

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the ...

..brussels record in the IANA Root Database
/ref> Registry DNS Belgium, who are also responsible for

.be .be is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Belgium. As of November 2022 there are 1,746,459 registered domains. History The domain became active in 1989 and was administrated by Pierre Verbaeten of the Katholieke Universiteit ...

, got permission to operate this domain and execute? these at the end of 2014, together with .vlaanderen. Before DNS Belgium was allowed to operate this, there had to be strict technical and financial evaluation conducted, the result of the evaluations was positive for .brussels.

History

Around 2011,

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces ...

, the governing body for domain names, decided organisations could request their own top-level domain name (TLD) . Besides the existing country codes such as

and generic extensions like

.com The domain name .com is a top-level domain (TLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. Added at the beginning of 1985, its name is derived from the word ''commercial'', indicating its original intended purpose for domains registere ...

, it became possible to have extensions such as .ibm,

.shop .shop is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) launched in September 2016. Nine companies including Google, Amazon and Famous Four Media filed applications for .shop in the 2012 ICANN new gTLD application round. GMO Registry became the registry oper ...

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 good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

, 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 ( nl, Vlaamse regering ) 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 and accountable to the Flemish Parliament, an ...

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

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brussels Computer-related introductions in 2014 Internet in Belgium Generic top-level domains

History

See also

References