.ss is the designated

country code top-level domain 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 tw ...

(ccTLD) for

South Sudan South Sudan (), officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered on the north by Sudan; on the east by Ethiopia; on the south by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Kenya; and on the ...

in the

Domain Name System The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed name service that provides a naming system for computers, services, and other resources on the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information ...

of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

. It is derived from the

ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes are two-letter country codes defined in ISO 3166-1, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), to represent countries, dependent territories, and special ...

code for South Sudan, which is '' SS''. According to ''CIO East Africa'', the TLD was allocated on 10 August 2011 following the country's

declaration of independence A declaration of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another state or failed state, or are breaka ...

from

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

. The TLD was registered on 31 August 2011, but not 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 ...

and was thus not operational. It was approved at the

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 ...

Board meeting on 27 January 2019 and was added to the

on 2 February 2019. Before .ss was successfully registered, the country's Undersecretary for Telecommunications had initially been concerned about the ccTLD request's possible rejection due to ''SS'' also being an abbreviation for

Schutzstaffel The ''Schutzstaffel'' (; ; SS; also stylised with SS runes as ''ᛋᛋ'') was a major paramilitary organisation under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II. It beg ...

, the paramilitary force of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

. Before the independence of South Sudan, the applicable domain was .sd, Sudan's top-level Internet domain. Registration of .ss second-level domain names launched in three phases starting 1 June 2020, with general availability starting 1 September 2020. In July 2024 the registry announced registration directly under .ss would open for all applicants on 1 November 2024.

Structure

Registration is possible under the following: * .ss – open to all applicants (starting from 1 November 2024) * .com.ss – open to all applicants (intended for commercial entities) * .biz.ss – any business entity * .net.ss – for network operators * .org.ss – for NGOs * .me.ss – for personal websites (name.me.ss) * .edu.ss – for South Sudan higher educational institutions * .sch.ss – for South Sudan secondary and primary schools * .gov.ss – for South Sudan government entities only

References

External links

ssNIC

Country code top-level domains Telecommunications in South Sudan Internet properties established in 2011 {{compu-domain-stub