The Hindu : Business : New policy for `.in' domain announced

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 29, 2004

Business

Business

New policy for `.in' domain announced

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, OCT. 28. The Union Communications and IT Minister, Dayanidhi Maran, today announced a new policy for the `.in' Internet domain name in order to popularise its use. The salient features of the policy include faster registration procedure and lower charges. The IT Department Secretary would be writing to all government organisations and corporates requesting them to migrate to the domain name under the India country code. The policy will be implemented from January 2005.

The initiative is in line with the international practice of countries adopting liberal and market friendly policies to register more domain names under their country names. At present, out of six crore domain names worldwide, less than 7,000 have `.in' suffix. In IT terminology, `.in' is India's allocated country code top level domain (ccTLD).

"This is a proactive step to promote Internet in India,'' noted Mr. Maran. Its large scale adoption will also help establish the Indian identity of users in the Internet space. Mr. Maran said the Government was also working on the concept of providing domain names in local languages on the lines of similar systems in China and Taiwan among other countries.

The Government plans to set up national Internet exchanges in second-tier cities to address the problem of high connectivity costs and slow speed. At present the not-for-profit National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) has hubs in the four metros to improve traffic routing and conserve bandwidth. NIXI has been entrusted with the responsibility of operating the `.in' registry by creating an `.in' Network Information Centre that will be an autonomous organisation.

Unlimited registration

Unlimited generic `.in' registration will be offered at second and third levels of domain name in globally popular zones of domain registration such as `.co.in,' `.net.in' and `.org.in.' The minimum fee charged by the `.in' Registry would be Rs. 250 and Rs. 500 per year for registrations at third and second levels. The present charges are three times higher. The entire process of registration will be online and should be completed in less than 24 hours of the receipt of the request from a registrant. The `.in' Registry will announce a `sunrise period' of 90 days to enable registered trademark owners, registered companies and owners of intellectual property having a legitimate interest in protecting their brand to secure registration of their domain names after due verification. The zones for Government, military and educational institutions will be reserved exclusively for these organisations. The Registry will have the authority to deny or suspend any registration if it conflicts with the sovereign national interest or public order.

The names of Constitutional authorities, States/Union Territories and specific names used by the `.in' Registry will be put in the reserved category of names, which will not be available to the general public.

The Government took this step as the number of registered `.in' domain names does not truly represent the penetration of IT in India. An overcautious registration policy and absence of contemporary processes and infrastructure for registration have so far hindered the growth of `.in' domain.

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