The question whether Norwegian authorities want to introduce new top level domains (TLDs) of national interest, such as for instance .oslo or .trondelag, will be explored in a working group appointed by the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications. The Norwegian Post and Telecommunications Authority will chair the group.
Norid will be represented in the working group together with several other experts and stakeholders, such as the Consumer Council of Norway, the Norwegian Industrial Property Office and Abelia - the Business Association of Norwegian knowledge and technology based enterprises, and the University of Oslo, Faculty of Law.
Norid has for a long time been engaged in the international work going on in ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assignment of Names and Numbers) on expanding the domain name system with innumerable new TLDs. The principles of protection of national interests and preservation of the subsidiarity principle are important to us; especially in connection with geographical names; territories, countries, capitol cities and regions. We think that each national state should control their domain resource, and that international rules are must be clear on this issue. The international process is now in the final stage, but important questions are still not finally decided.
- The result of the working group is important to secure that possible new Norwegian top level domains of national importance are allocated and operated according to the interest of the Norwegian public, says senior advisor for legal and policy in Norid, Annebeth B. Lange.
Useful linkes
Press release from NPT (in Norwegian only)
Norid's last consultation response to ICANN (in Norwegian only, but with further linking to English pages)
New year's greetings 2010 from Hilde Thunem: The tug of war over the Internet goes on