Abuse of the lot-drawing mechanism

During previous drawing lots Norid has seen an increasing tendency of some people trying to abuse the system in order to get the names they want. The problem has been discussed with The Norwegian Post and Telecommunications Authority (NPTA) as supervisory body for .no. NPTA and Norid have decided that a stricter regime is necessary when opening for numeric domain names.

Norid would like to draw your attention to the following:

The drawing of lots mechanism has been chosen in order to give all applicants an equal opportunity to register the domain names they want. Organisations cooperating with other organisations in applying for the same domain names, thus increasing their chances to get the names at the expense of other applicants, violate the basic principle of the drawing.

If we discover obvious abuse of the drawing mechanism we reserve the right to

1. close/reject all applications from the organisations, and withdraw the right to participate in the drawing
2. suspend the registrar who submits the applications

The suspension of the registrar will occur if Norid considers the registrar to be either an obvious accomplice to the abuse or that the registrar should have understood that his system was being abused.

The NPTA will be kept informed about the development in any possible cases involving obvious abuse of the drawing mechanism.

At the same time we wish to emphasise that the applicant has, as with other domain names, the responsibility to make sure that the name does not violate Norwegian law or the rights of third parties.