A millionth .pl domain has been registered in the national internet domain register kept by NASK (Research and Academic Computer Network). Head of the NASK Internet Domains Division, Andrzej Bartosiewicz, informs that the domain has been registered on 6 May 2008.

“Exceeding the first million of Polish domains coincides with the fifth anniversary of launching a fully automated system of domain registration and introduction by NASK of the Partnership Programme which allows the partner companies to individually register domains in the national register .pl. Since the moment of introducing the Partnership System, we have been observing an increase of the number of registered domains and a creation of a market with active registrars”, says Andrzej Bartosiewic

From today until May 20, anyone with a trademark is eligible to apply for a name with the suffix .me, the assigned top-level domain for the Southern European nation Montenegro.

The country has made the .me domain available to interested parties worldwide, hoping to capitalize upon the myriad of uses the extension holds in the English language while keeping its own "visit.me," "explore.me," and "invest.me."

The AFNIC is happy to see the opening of a public consultation. It invites all of the stakeholders (professionals, associations, Internet users) to express their point of view and their expectations on the future management of the French Internet domains.

The French Department of Economy, Finance and Employment starts on 25th April 2008 a public consultation on the criteria that could be taken into account during the selection of the future registration office(s).

The public consultation is based:

Domain tasting is the disreputable practice of registering lots of domains, seeing how much traffic they get, and then using the five day Add Grace Period to refund the 99.9% of them that aren’t worth paying for. A related abuse is front running, registrars speculatively grabbing domains that people inquire about to prevent them from using a different registrar.

NIC Mexico (Network Information Center México), the registry and administrators of the .MX cctTLD, is announcing that on April 28th, 250,000 .MX domain name registrations have been reached. This new threshhold turns out to be highly promising for the increasing use of .MX domain names, given the accelerated behavior of registration in the last years; and [...]

NIC Mexico announced they reached the milestone of the 250,000th .mx domain name on April 28. While .mx is not one of the larger ccTLDs, it is experiencing strong growth with an increase of 24 per cent in 2007.

Spanish government's domain names held to ransom over water By Fiona Govan in Madrid Last Updated: 2:12am BST 28/04/2008 A cybersquatter is holding the Spanish government to ransom by refusing to give up the domain names of several government ministries unless they agree to transfer water to all of Spain’s drought stricken regions.

Following his re-election last month, the Socialist prime minister Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero announced the creation of four new ministries but authorities failed to register their internet addresses and they have been bought by someone else.

From May 1, it will be possible for the first time to register domains with the Montenegrin suffix .me. The startup phase is complex and will go through several stages before domains will become freely available on a "first come, first serve" basis on 17th July. Even then, more than 3000 domains will remain off-limits.

The .me Registrar intends to allocate 2600 particularly desirable domain names at a later, as yet undisclosed date and is likely to put them up for auction. More than 400 further character sequences are reserved for the Montenegrin authorities and for the Afilias registry service itself, and won't become available to the general public.

DUBLIN, Ireland and WASHINGTON, April 28 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of its ongoing series of unique methods of allocating Internet domain names, dotMobi -- the company behind the .mobi web address for mobile phones -- is bringing 16 "premium names" to market at Moniker's T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East Auction on May 23, 2008.

To help drive interest in -- and visits to -- the mobile web sites of brands and businesses around the world, dotMobi has chosen to bring names to market that represent a wide range of interests. The domain names to be auctioned at this event are airlines.mobi, boats.mobi, company.mobi, computers.mobi, drugs.mobi, escort.mobi, films.mobi, forsale.mobi, men.mobi, mortgage.mobi, records.mobi, religion.mobi, ringtone.mobi, sales.mobi, show.mobi, and strip.mobi

There will be what is billed as the largest annual domainer meeting in central Paris June 19 and 20, 2008, immediately prior to the ICANN meeting and in the same hotel as the Paris ICANN meeting - the Hotel Meridien Montparnasse