Norid

Uninett Norid AS

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Domain name registry
Headquarters	Trondheim, Norway
Area served	Norway
Services	.no
Revenue	NOK 23.1 million (2009)[1]
Operating income	NOK 6.6 million (2009)[1]
Profit	NOK 4.8 million (2009)[1]
Parent	Uninett
Website	www.norid.no

Uninett Norid AS, trading as Norid, is the domain name registry for the three Norwegian country code top-level domains (ccTLD) .no, .sj and .bv. The non-profit company is based in Trondheim, where it shares offices with its parent company Uninett; both companies being owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research. Norid operates under contract with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, supervised by the Norwegian Post and Telecommunications Authority. Uninett took over responsibility for the Norwegian domain in 1987, and in 2003 it was spun off as a separate company. Only .no is open for registration.

History

The registry for .no was in 1983 given to Pål Spilling at the Norwegian Telecommunications Administration's research institute. However, policy-makers wanted the domain to be managed by a non-commercial organization, and the responsibility was transferred to Uninett, a supplier of information and communications technology to Norwegian public universities, colleges and research institutions,^[2] on 17 March 1987.^[3] At the time Uninett was administrated as a division of SINTEF, but became a limited company owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research in 1993. Norid was established as a division within Uninett in 1996, with the responsibility of managing the .no domain.^[2] On 21 August 1997, Norid was given the responsibility for the newly created .sj and .bv domains.^[4][5] In 1998, Uninett FAS was established as a subsidiary to manage the technical network and service infrastructure Uninett had established, including operation of the network systems for the universities and colleges. At the same time, Norid was transferred to Uninett FAS. In 1998, two organizations were established: the Domain Resolution Body, to determine domain disputes, and Norpol, a political advisory board.^[2] Domain name registrars were introduced in 1999 to handle aspects that could be provided by a third party.^[6] Uninett Norid was made a separate subsidiary of Uninett in 2003, to secure the management of the domains within an independent organization.^[7]

Organization

Uninett Norid AS is a limited company wholly owned by Uninett, a subsidiary of the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research. The offices are co-located with Uninett in Trondheim.^[8] Norid manages three country ccTLDs: .no, .sj and .bv. The former is the main domain for Norway, and the latter two are not open for registration.^[9] The legal right to manage the domains is two-fold, based both on an agreement with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and regulations via the Telecommunication Act which is supervised by the Norwegian Post and Telecommunications Authority.^[10] In 2009, the company had a revenue of 23.1 million Norwegian krone.^[1] Norid is a member of the Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries.^[11]

Policy

The policy for use of the domains is regulated by the Regulation Concerning Domain Names Under Norwegian Country Code Top-level Domains, also known as the Domain Regulation. This regulation also regulates .bv and .sj, and would be effective for these, should they later come unto use.^[12]

Only organizations with a local presence in Norway and with registration in the Brønnøysund Register Centre are allowed to register domains under .no. Each organization can register 100 directly under the .no domain, but can register further domains under geographical domains or category second-level domains.^[13] Domain names must consist of 2 to 63 characters. Permitted characters are the lower-case English letters a through z, digits (0 through 9), the three Norwegian letter æ, ø and å, and 20 special Sami letters. Norid also maintains a series of second-level domains for geographic locations and special institutions. There is also a series of domain names that cannot be registered.^[14]

The domains .bv and .sj remain reserved for potential future use. Sale of the two unused ccTLDs has not been an item to consider for policymakers, as commercialization of the domain resources is in direct contradiction to Norwegian policy.^[9]

References

Bibliography

• ".no eller aldri..." (PDF) (in Norwegian). Norwegian Post and Telecommunications Authority. 21 March 2002. Retrieved 5 September 2010.