Almost 16,000 .swiss domains registered
Web addresses ending in .swiss are generating a lot of interest: The domain has been available for a year—and the federal government has already registered 15,755 such sites.
The authorities speak of a success. In addition to the existing country code domains such as .ch and already awarded thematic endings such as .org and .edu, further such Internet namespaces had been opened in 2012. The federal government secured the .swiss domain for Switzerland - and entrusted the Federal Office of Communications (Bakom) with its operation. It allocates the domain names according to defined criteria. By the one-year anniversary, Bakom had done so nearly 16,000 times, according to a statement Wednesday. This included names such as watch.swiss, tourism.swiss and auto.swiss.
Tourism well represented
According to Bakom, the majority of the designations went to stock corporations and other companies from all sectors. For example, the majority of listed companies in Switzerland now have a .swiss address. The tourism industry is also well represented with numerous hotels, tourism associations, booking portals and mountain railroads. According to the federal authority, numerous SMEs that are less well-known to the public and have a large export share also already have a .swiss address. Finally, in addition to many associations and organizations, numerous municipalities and more than half of the cantons have already received allocations. Thousands of .swiss sites are already active.
Private individuals excluded
Anyone wanting a .swiss Internet address must have a place of business and a physical administrative headquarters in Switzerland, as well as a clear link to the Internet address. Private individuals continue to be excluded. Domain names such as hotel.swiss must be in the service of the entire industry concerned. Applications that meet the basic requirements will be published once a week for twenty days on the website www.nic.swiss so that competing applications can be submitted. Names that are not contested will be allocated after this period. In case of disputes, Bakom decides on the basis of the Ordinance on Internet Domains. (SDA)
Image: Dominoeffect.swiss: The one-year anniversary of .swiss is celebrated with a spectacular domino action. Each of the 16,000 dominoes of the final dot.swiss field symbolizes the allocation of a .swiss domain in the past year.
