August 16, 2006; 03:16 AM Mariehamn, Finland - Today the Aland
Islands Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) became
operational. The Aland Islands is an autonomous administrative province
of Finland and has up until now been using aland.fi, which is part of
the Finnish ccTLD .fi.
The .ax domain was passed into Finnish
law this spring and on 9 June the last hurdle was removed when ICANN
adopted the .ax domain. The new top-level domain will make the Aland
Islands more visible on the Internet. The Aland Islands already has its
own stamps and its own flag, and getting its own top-level domain name
will further strengthen the Islands’ identity.
The registration
fee is 50 € for three years, however registering .ax domains is limited
to local persons and business. And since there are about 26,000
inhabitants less than 400 domains have been registered so far.
Some of the rules for the top-level domain name are: - A domain name may not be a word denoting form of enterprise, form of foundation, from of community or abbreviation thereof. - A domain name cannot be a top level domain whether it is a generic (i.e. .info, .net) or a country code. - A domain name may not contain defamatory expressions or expressions that encourage criminal activities. - A domain name must be active (there must be name servers), and it is not allowed to apply for domains to store or resell.
Since
reselling domains is not allowed domaining – or business of buying,
selling, developing and monetizing domain names – will be limited.
For more information about .Ax go to the local government’s site at: http://www.regeringen.ax/axreg/
(information in Swedish only) or for information in English visits
Axventure.com (http:://axventure.com) which is a local venture
specializing in domain monetization.
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