Under the Norwegian domain name policy, only companies registered in the Register of Legal Entities may register '.no' domain names. For foreign companies, the most common solution for fulfilling the local presence requirement is to register a Norwegian branch office.
While the domain name policy was recently relaxed to allow each registrant to hold up to 100 '.no' domain names, NORID – the country-code top-level domain registry – is now preparing a major spring clean of its database to delete domain names that are registered to companies that no longer exist.
Domain name holders that are no longer registered in the Register of Legal Entities will receive notification that their domain names will be deleted and will be advised to contact their registrars to transfer the relevant domain names to an eligible holder.
Notifications will be sent via both email(1) and letter to registered holders. Emails will be sent to the email addresses recorded for the company and the recorded legal contact for each domain name. The letter will be sent to the recorded address of the legal contact. As long as the recorded addresses are still in use and notifications are received, registrants will still have the opportunity to maintain domain names by transferring them to an eligible holder within 90 days of receipt of the notification. However, registrants that do not have updated addresses at NORID should update their contact details and transfer domain name registrations to an eligible registrant.
The domain name holder will be given a term of 60 days during which the domain name will remain active, plus a quarantine period of 30 days after the domain has been removed from the domain name system, to transfer the domain name to an existing and registered company. If the domain name is not transferred during this 90-day period, the domain name registration will be deleted.
It is expected that NORID will issue some 22,000 notifications affecting 35,000 domain names. Due to the large volume, notifications will be sent in batches of 2,000 per week.
For further information on this topic please contact Pål Tonna at Bryn Aarflot AS by telephone (+47 46 90 30 00) or by fax (+47 22 00 31 31) or by email ([email protected]).
Endnotes
(1) The email notification template can be seen at www.norid.no/registrar/nytt/databasevask-epost.en.txt.