All together there are 17 candidates on the shortlist divided into five categories. The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Brussel on 3 October.
Simpler to chose a name for entrepreneurs
With the navnesok.no service someone who wants to start his own business can check domain name, company name, and trademark in one single search on one web page. Earlier, an entrepreneur would have to visit three different search pages at three different entities to be able to check the relevant registers. The process on checking whether a name is available or in conflict with a name already registered has been greatly simplified with the navnesok.no service. This kind of check is important both to secure one's own rights, as well as to avoid getting into conflicts where others have registered rights to a name.
The service also recommends a set order for the registration process: Domain name first, then company name and trademark. When doing the registrations in this order it is possible to avoid the very unfortunate situation that someone else has grabbed the domain name for a newly registered company, before they have the chance to register it.
The service is jointly developed by Norid, the Brønnøysund Register Centre and the Norwegian industrial Property Office.
Ensuring top-level domains for new countries
Annebeth B. Lange is nominated as Contributor of the year for her substantial effort to ensure that country and territory names remain national or local resources in the ongoing global process on new generic top-level domains. The process was initiated in 2012 under ICANN, with the purpose of offering more commercial opportunities in the domain name system by opening for registration of .whatever. Today some 1,200 new generic top-level domains are up and running in addition to the "old" ones, such as .com, .org and the like.
When this process started, Lange was the one who pointed at the need of making exceptions for country and territory names from commercial registration. She has been working tirelessly to ensure that new countries that may be established would have their country code and country name available for registration. She also called attention to the consequences if a commercial actor is permitted to register for example .norway.
Annebeth B. Lange has been working with internet and domain issues for years, starting at the Norwegian Post and Telecommunication Authorities (now the National Communication Authority), and as Head of legal at Norid for the last ten years. Through the years she has had an extensive international commitment, lately especially with the new generic top-level domains process. She is now honoured for her effort with a nomination as Contributor of the year.
More about the CENTR Awards and the nominations: https://www.centr.org/events/centr-awards.html