.de
 | |
| Introduced | 5 November 1986 |
|---|---|
| TLDtype | Country code top-level domain |
| Status | Active |
| Registry | DENIC |
| Sponsor | DENIC eG |
| Intended use | Entities connected withGermany |
| Actual use | Overwhelmingly popular in Germany and gets some use overseas, also used for domain hacks (e.g. alongsi.de) |
| Registered domains | 17,692,579 (2024-04-02)[1] |
| Registration restrictions | None |
| Structure | May register at second level |
| Dispute policies | DISPUTE-Entries |
| DNSSEC | Yes |
| Registry website | denic.de |
.deis thecountry code top-level domain(ccTLD) forGermany.DENIC(theNetwork Information Centreresponsible for.de domains) does not require specificsecond-level domains,and there are no officialccSLDsunder.de ccTLD, as it is the case with the.ukdomain range which until 2014 required.co.ukdomain for example.
The name is based on the first two letters of the German name for Germany (Deutschland). Prior to 1990,East Germanyhad a separateISO 3166-1code (dd), and had never delegated a ccTLD,.dd.
.de is currently the second most popular ccTLD in terms of number of registrations with.cnbeing the first most popular ccTLD and.ukbeing third. It is third afterand.cn among all TLDs.[2] The first point of registration for.de domains was at the Department of Computer Science of theUniversity of Dortmund.uni-dortmund.dewas among the first registered.de-domains.
.de registrations may be directly ordered fromDENICbut it is faster and cheaper to do so via aDENICmember (registrar).[citation needed]
Previously, domain names had to be at least three letters long. There were a few two-letter domains registered before the rule was put in place: db.de (Deutsche Bahn,German Railways), ix.de (the German computing magazineiX), and hq.de. Another domain, bb.de (Bilfinger Berger), was later deregistered (and after 2009 registered by another company). As a result of a lawsuit byVolkswagen,which wanted to register the two-letter domain "vw.de", after 23 October 2009, DENIC was forced to allow the registration of single- and two-letter domains as well as number-only domains, such as 123.de, xx.de or v.de.[3]
Registrations ofinternationalized domain names(IDN) are also accepted so that alldiacritics of German,many diacritics of other languages and the eszett,ß,may be used.[4]
In many of theRomance languages,e.g., Spanish, French,RomanianandPortuguese,"de"expresses thegenitiveof a noun (like "of"in English). This is exploited in domain registrations under the German TLD for romance languagewebhoststhat offer customized sites, likeelforo.de(theforum.of), encoding the site name into theURLpath, such aselforo.de/wikipedia,meaning theforum.of/Wikipedia.
See also[edit]
- Internet in Germany
- .dd
- .ag
- .eu–ccTLD for theEuropean Union
Generic geographic domains, connected to Germany[edit]
References[edit]
- ^"DENIC".DENIC.2 April 2024.Archivedfrom the original on 2 April 2024.Retrieved2 April2024.
- ^DENIC(September 2018)."Comparison of International Domain Numbers".Archived fromthe originalon 29 October 2018.Retrieved29 October2018.
- ^"DENIC eG Eases Domain Guidelines".DENIC.
- ^"IDN character list".DENIC.