A Dutch firm has introduced a domain registration
service that gives businesses and organisations more flexibility
over the domain names they use.
UnifiedRoot has extended the relatively short list of internet
suffixes on offer through Icann’s system by installing 13 internet
domain name system (DNS) root servers across four continents.
Dutch airport Schiphol is one of the company’s first customers
to use the £600 registration service, which also comes with £150
annual re-registration fee.
As well as having the .schiphol top level domain name, the
airport is also allowed to use additional web addresses such as
flights.schiphol or parking.schiphol.
Icann (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)
is the main controller of domain names, although some countries
resent the fact that it reports directly to the US government.
At a UN-sponsored conference in Tunisia earlier this month, the
US government successfully fought off attempts to water down its
control of the internet.
To make sure that its domains are recognised by end-user
computers, UnifiedRoot is striking deals with ISPs to enable the
addresses to be reached.