Expanding the geographic name tree

14. August 2002 kl. 10:00 Norid will open for registration of domain names under 477 new geographical domains. All organizations who wish for a domain name expressing their connection to a specific area may register under the adress placename.no In addition counties may establish web portals under the adresses www.placename.no and www.county.no.

Local connection
This change will expand the posibillities for use of placenames in internet adresses both for public authorities and private organisations. Even if a portal is established at www.placename.no, the domain placename.no will still be open for registration of third-level domains. This means that Volda County may have a portal at www.volda.no, while Hansen AS in Volda may register www.hansen-as.volda.no if they wish a domain name connected to the place where the organization is situated.

Registrations under volda.no is still possible because the domain name vil be reserved as a public resource for the local internet community. To ensure equal treatment of all applicants, the domain name policy for the geographical domains will be set by Norid.

Portals
Counties will be given the possibility to establish portals with the placename as an adress. Many counties has wanted to use this to connect the information of tourism, local businesses and public organisations on a local, easy to find, adress.

Røros became roros
As today's technical standards does not alow æ, ø, å and some of the sami characters, some of the geographical placenames must be translitterated. Some names consists of more than one word, and a standard must be made for these names. After receiving input from the counties, Norid has chosen the form for these names.

Background material for the change of rules

The Norwegian Post and Telecommunications Authority and Norid proposed a change in the rules regarding the Geographic Name Tree. The proposal was put to public inquiry in November 2001. The inquiry document is published in Norwegian at http://www.norid.no/regelverk/forslag/geografisk-2001/geografisk.html.

PDF-format (Norwegian) at http://www.norid.no/regelverk/forslag/geografisk-2001/hnotat.pdf

Analysis of the inquiry (Norwegian) http://www.norid.no/regelverk/forslag/geografisk-2001/EY-georapport.html.

Proposed new domain name policy http://www.norid.no/regelverk/forslag/2002-05-15/navnepolitikk.en.html.