ccTLDs.com » Country Code Specific Forums » .be Forum

[Ray Neu]

.be

What does DNS BE do?

DNS BE is a not-for-profit association that has handled the registration of all .be domain names since 1999. To use the trade jargon, we are a 'ccTLD-operator' or a 'registry', because we maintain the register of all .be domain names.To make it easier to visualize, simply compare us with a telephone exchange for the Internet in Belgium. Our job is to ensure that when someone enters a .be domain name into their browser, they are switched through to the right server. Which is quite a job, because there are hundreds of thousands of domain names that may be called up millions of times a day.Anyone has been able to register a .be domain name in Belgium since 11th December 2000. Since this liberalization, the number of .be domain names has risen from around 40,000 at the end of 2000 to over 800,000 in 2008.

Source: dns.be

What kind of names can I register?

Only letters (a-z), digits (0-9) and hyphens (-) are allowed. A domain name cannot start or end with a hyphen "-". Neither allowed are domain names of less than two characters or more than sixty-three (63) characters as well as names with "-" on the third and fourth position.
On 1 March 2004, there was extensive media coverage of the fact that there will be the possibility of registering domain names that not only consist of the conventional 26 letters, ten numbers and the dash, but also characters with accents, such as , and . These are called IDN (Internationalized Domain Names) but DNS Belgium has decided, for the time being, not to offer any IDN domain names.


Does .be offer IDNs?

No, there was extensive media coverage of the fact that there will be the possibility of registering domain names that not only consist of the traditional 26 letters, ten numbers and the hyphen, but also characters with accents. These are called IDN (Internationalized Domain Names) but DNS Belgium has decided, for the time being, not to offer any IDN domain names.

Source: 101domain.com

[Tom]

This might also be usefull for people to know:

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
DNS.be uses a ADR proceding based on the UDRP. Basically, one has to prove he has rights on the name, one has to prove the owner does not have rights/legitimate interests, and one has to prove that the name was registered or is being used in bad faith. Only if all 3 conditions are met, the name will be transfered to the complainant.

One very important thing to know: if the complainant wins the case, the costs of the procedure (currently 1620 euro) will be refunded by DNS.be, which will then claim that amount from the old licensee. So if someone files an ADR against you and you lose, you do not only lose your domainname, but you also have to pay 1620 euro. This makes typo/cybersquatting (which you shouldn't do anyway) a very dangerous business.