Our Latin America Domain Expert, Juan Enrique Sánchez S., President of Domains Latin America NameAction, has written another guest post, this time on .DO domains which is the ccTLD for the Dominican Republic.

NIC DO will allow the registration of 2nd level domains starting on  December 10th 2009. (second level means domains like “xxxx.com.do” rather than just xxxx.do)

General Requirements:

· To protect the current registrations it will start with a pre-registration period.

· NIC DO will register directly under .DO all the domains registered before October 30th 2009 under 3rd level that until November 30th 2009 do not present any pending payment.

· NIC DO has a list of domains which could not be registered, for example: terms related to IANA, ICANN, Internet, New gTLDs, etc.

· Domains with less than 2 characters, domains with cities of Dominican Republic, if domains are in process of a Lawsuit, etc. can not be registered.

· In cases where a domain of 3rd level is registered to 2 different owners the one with the oldest registration will keep the 2nd level.

· The information of the pre-registered 2nd level domain will be the same as the domain of origin (3rd level).

· Domain names requested under pre-registration will have to be completed before March 10th 2010, at that time if the registration is not complete it will become available for any interested person.

· The domain name will not resolve by the DNS until the payment for registration has been done.

· Domains can only be registered for 2 years minimum.

New Policies for Controversies for domain Resolution

New mechanisms are created to solve 2 types of controversies:

1.- Controversies between the owner of the domain and NIC.DO

Every lawsuit, controversy or complain between the owner of a domain name and NIC DO, resulting from the application of these policies or related to the same, its failure, its interpretation, etc. must be solved directly by them, and by default, will be subject to arbitration by the Counsel of Conciliation and Arbitration of the Chamber of commerce and Production of Santo Domingo, Inc.

2.- Controversies between the owner of a domain name and a 3rd party.

In case of a dispute or controversy between an owner of a domain name and a 3rd party regarding a registration or use of the domain name, this dispute or controversy will be subject to the disposition established in the Politics of Controversy resolution in matters of domain names for .DO and the Requirement of the Policy of resolution of controversies in matters of domain names (The Regulations) for .DO and the Additional Regulations of the provider of the controversy resolution regarding domain names.

NIC DO has selected the Arbitration and Mediation Center of the WIPO to manage the controversies.