Publish Date: Friday, November 02, 2007
We, at ResellersPanel, are glad to inform you that, as of today, the .UK and .CA domain extensions (top-level-domains or TLDs) are available for registration through the Web Hosting Control Panel. Knowing how desired they were, we hope that these domain extensions will meet the needs of those of you who come from the United Kingdom and Canada.
Let's now introduce the new TLDs and review their special requirements.
.UK (.CO.UK and .ORG.UK) Domain Names
As you know, the .UK TLD stands for the United Kingdom. The .CO.UK and .ORG.UK SLDs (second-level-domains) can be used for domain name registration or transfer purposes. The domain names registered with these SLDs have some special features that make their management different from that of the .com, .net, etc. TLDs. The differences are in the registration period, the renewal policy and the management of the WHOIS information.
Registration period: The registration period for all .UK domains is 2 years.
Renewal policy: Renewals for these domains are possible, again, for a 2 years. In addition, renewal is only possible when 5 months, or less, are left until the expiration date.
WHOIS management: WHOIS modification is not possible through the Control Panel and the UK registry Nominet must be contacted directly by the domain owner when the WHOIS information must be changed. The reason for this restriction is that such changes are considered as formal transfer and there are certain fees that must be paid to Nominet.
.CA Domain Names
The Canadian registrar CIRA has some special requirements for the registrants and for the WHOIS management.
Registrant requirements: Domain names with .CA extension can be registered by Canadian citizens, individuals with permanent residency in Canada and companies under the laws of Canada. Due to this requirement, additional contact attributes are required upon registration and for this purpose we have made a separate page as a step of the domain registration process. This page allows you and your clients to select the correct attribute from the list of options.
WHOIS management: The registrant cannot change the WHOIS to transfer ownership from one person or organization to another, but can change registrant's address, phone number and other contact information. However, in order to modify this information, you and your clients will have to submit a trouble ticket to the Customer Support staff from the Help Center section in the Web Hosting Control Panel.
It is worth mentioning that both domains are transferable between different registrars and that no EPP authorization key is needed for that. Unfortunately, both registries don't support WHOIS / ID Protection for their domain names, which is characteristic of the most of the "country domains".
What should you and your clients expect after these TLDs?
Right now we are working on the implementation of .DE and .EU domain names in our reseller web hosting network and our developers will do their best to introduce these TLDs by the end of November.
