.me Domain Name

Tell your story on the Internet with .ME, the Top-Level Domain that’s all about you, your product, your world!

Individuals:

• Carve out a place on the Internet that’s all your own (includes FREE email address with your .ME domain name in it)!
• Perfect for blogs, resumes, and personal pages.

Businesses:

• Personalize your product or service for Internet-savvy younger visitors by launching a .ME Web site with your product name in it.
• Protect your brand from competitors who might wish to take advantage of the name recognition generated by your popular .COM.

.me is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Montenegro.

This follows Montenegro’s June 3, 2006 declaration of independence from Serbia and Montenegro, which used the code .yu.

The dot-ME top level domain replaced the dot-YU (Yugoslavia) domain previously used by Serbia and Montenegro. In addition to declaring .me independent of .yu, a new .rs domain is to be deployed for Serbian use.

The .me registry is operated by doMEn, which won a contract to do so after a bid process conducted by the government of Montenegro.

Introducing .me

ICANN resolved that .me be delegated to the Government of Montenegro, with the former .yu domain to be operated temporarily by the .rs domain registry, Serbian National Register of Internet Domain Names, until its eventual abolition on or before 30 September 2009.

On 11 September 2007, delegation of root name servers was approved by IANA, establishing .me. The .me domain became active on 24 September 2007 and a “Public Invitation for selection of the Agent for domain registration under the national Internet domain of Montenegro” was posted on 14 November. doMEn d.o.o. was selected as the new registry operator.

doMEn, d.o.o. is a Montenegro based joint venture (doing business as .ME Registry) whose partners are Afilias Limited, GoDaddy.com, Inc., and ME-net d.o.o.

May 6th, 2008 – .me Registry – General Sunrise began for all eligible Trademark holders anywhere in the world.

On July 16, 2008, registration was made available for all .me domains at various registrars.

.ME registry
www.domen.me	.ME registry in Montenegrin
www.domain.me	.ME registry in English
www.nic.me	Former .ME registry
Government of Montenegro
www.me	Montenegro general information
www.gov.me	Government of Montenegro
www.szr.gov.me	Secretariat for Economic Development
University of Montenegro
www.ucg.ac.me	University of Montenegro main site
www.cis.ac.me	Centre for Information Systems
www.etf.ac.me	Faculty of Electrical Engineering
www.ef.ac.mewww.ekonomija.ac.me	Faculty of Economics
www.pmf.ac.me	Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics

Domain structure for .me

The .me extension was assigned to Montenegro as a country code after it became an independent nation in June 2006. However, the Montenegro government decided .ME would be operated as a generic name after considering the potential worldwide appeal for the extension.

Third-level registrations are available to Montenegrin citizens and companies in the following zones:

• .co.me – unlimited registration, but appropriate for corporations
• .net.me – unlimited registration, but appropriate for providers of Internet services
• .org.me – unlimited registration, but appropriate for civil organizations and associations
• .edu.me – Educational institutions, such as primary and high schools
• .ac.me – Academic and post-secondary organizations such as universities; University of Montenegro has ucg.ac.me as its primary domain
• .gov.me – State and Government authorities
• .its.me or .priv.me – unlimited registration, but appropriate for personal use

Sun Rise, Land Rush & Open Reg

On 6 May 2008 .me Registry opened Sunrise period for all eligible Trademark holders anywhere in the world. Five domain names had multiple applications and were sold through the auctions. During the .ME Landrush auction period, more than two-million dollars was generated with names like Insure.Me and Sync.Me going to the highest bidder.

On July 16, 2008 registration was made available for all .me domains at various registrars.

Throughout June and July 2008 multiple Landrush applications were received, which resulted in more than 2500 Landrush auctions that were held during July and August 2008 after Go Live was opened on 17 July 2008.

At the beginning of August 2008 100,000 .me domain names were registered. Sources say part of the worldwide appeal for the .me domain extension is the marketing aspect.

In 2008 in terms of the number of web pages indexed by Google among all TLDs, .me sites have enjoyed the fastest growth with more than 50% a month. In the same year, .me topped its potential rivals .mobi and .asia in Alexa Internet top one million websites with 341 .me sites versus 233 .mobi sites and 86 .asia sites. Extra potential of .me is revealed considering the fact that .mobi was launched two years before .me and .asia four months before .me.

By the middle of February 2009 200,000 .me domain names were registered.

Known hacks

Most .me domain names were purchased as domain hacks in English, and few in Dutch languages. .me has seen its greatest interest among English speaking countries including the United States (71%), the United Kingdom (6%), Canada (4%), and Australia (2%).

One of the most expensive domain sold during the Land Rush period was insure.me that went for $68,005. Shortly, it was followed by date.me, which was sold on the premium auction for $70,000 and love.me for $32,500.

In Dutch, only verb combinations were popular, as they made grammatical sense. E.g., reserveer.me, which can be translated as book.me, and repareer.me – repair.me. Most of the Dutch domains were sold outside the auction during the Go Live phase.

.me domains are also used by some companies and individuals to acronym Middle East and the U.S. State of Maine.

Trademark disputes

In 2008 three trademark cases were filed with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Centre. All three domain names, namely: creditmutuel.me, porsche.me, and exxonmobil.me were transferred to the complainants.

.cg.yu

Prior to introduction of .me, most used domain in Montenegro was second-level domain .cg.yu, Internet domain name of Montenegrin ISP T-Crnogorski Telekom. CG was made as an abbreviation of the name of Montenegro, Crna Gora. The domain was created as a top-level .yu subdomain, under nic.yu rules which allowed such domains only to Internet providers.

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