Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

Norway bans the Dutch from using dormant .bv

Kevin Murphy, June 23, 2016, 11:04:57 (UTC), Domain Registries

The Norwegian government has intervened to prevent a deal that would have allowed the sale of .bv domain names in the Netherlands.
Norwegian ccTLD registry Norid and Dutch counterpart SIDN said a deal to start using the dormant ccTLD fell apart after the government exercised its right of veto under Norway’s domain regulations.
.bv represents Bouvet Island, the remotest island in the world. It’s a Norwegian territory in the Antarctic, uninhabited but for seals.
It’s been delegated to Norway since 1997, but has never been used.
But BV is also the Dutch acronym for “Besloten vennootschap met beperkte aansprakelijkheid”, a corporate identifier that has pretty much the same meaning as “Ltd” or “LLC”.
Clearly, there was an opportunity to make a bit of extra pocket money for both registries, had SIDN been allowed to licence the use of the ccTLD, but the government intervention has scuppered all that.
SIDN said it had planned to use .bv as “a platform for validated business data”, but that now it will try to implement that idea in .nl instead.

Tagged: , , , ,

Comments (5)

  1. Eric Lyon says:

    Interesting. I wonder if there is an underlying reason why they blocked it. It seems like a cash cow that could of stimulated the economy for Norway. It’s just hard to believe they would restrict such a revenue stream for them self unless there were other (undisclosed) reasons.

  2. Benny Samuelsen says:

    @Eric There are reasons but can’t go into details, but can say so much that some people acts like 5 year olds in a sandbox…..

  3. I’ve proposed an alternative use of the .bv (and .sj) domain, one that tries to correct some of the flaws in the current use of the internet. An English translation of the proposal is available:
    https://www.opendemocracy.net/håkon-wium-lie/net-names-for-safe-shelter
    -h&kon

    • Benny Samuelsen says:

      Cant remember you have asked the broad internet community about this is a better use! We can agree to disagree

  4. K Mosman says:

    @Eric Two years ago, Web pioneer Håkon Wium Lie, wrote an article, “Net names for safe shelter” (see https://www.opendemocracy.net/hakon-wium-lie/net-names-for-safe-shelter), about possible uses of a top domain like .bv. Perhaps his government would like to explore such possibilities.
    Or maybe they simply felt it might become a political hot potato if they granted the special dispensation from the Norwegian law which Norid was seeking: dispensation which would remove the obligation of an open debate on the use/sale of such a national resource, especially when various organizations had started questioning such a “sale”.
    There is a timeline (albeit in Norwegian) of this particular case with links to all the various government documents (also in Norwegian) if one is interested.
    https://www.norid.no/no/omnorid/toppdomenet-bv/tidslinje/

Add Your Comment