Since March 2010 it will be possible to register .CO top Level Domains like www.example.co, the process is in 4 phases:

Phase1 - Priority Period (March, 2010):    Those that have an existing Colombian domain (such as .COM.CO) registered before July 30, 2008 will have priority to register the same domain in the top level.

Phase 2 - Trademark Period
(April 1- April 20, 2010): Those that have trademark in Colombia before July 30.2008, will be able to register .CO domains.
(April 26 - Jun 10, 2010): Those that have trademark outside of Colombia before July 30th, 2008, will be able to register .CO domains.

Phase 3 - Premium Period (June 21 to July 13, 2010): Anyone will be able to request a domain with a higher fee (TBA). In case of coincidences an auction will be done.

Phase 4 - General Period (From July 20, 2010): The registration will be open to public in general on the base of “First Come, First Served”.

Please note that all the dates are tentative and could be changed by the registry. More information on the prices and pre-registrations will be announced in due course.

NIC.CO will have a new registry operator - “.CO Internet SAS” from 7 Feb, announced by The Ministry of Telecommunications of Colombia. This change will be done jointly with a significant simplification of the domain registration policies as below:
•     Both individuals and companies will be able to register .COM.CO
•     Both Columbian Resident and foreigners will be able to register .COM.CO
•     Registrant or Trademark documentation will no longer be required
•     One applicant will be able to register an unlimited number of domains
•     Domains will be able to be registered from 1 to 5 years.
•     Domains will be able to be transferred between registrants and registrars.

Dear Customer:

Instra attended the Registrar Meeting with CNNIC in China last week, discussing the changes made to .CN registrations by CNNIC recently. Below is the most up to date .CN domain policies providing the current status of .CN registrations.

•    NEW registrations through Foreign Registrars continue to be temporarily suspended, since CNNIC is still evaluating different options on how to validate registration information from international registrants.

•    Foreign Registrars are required to submit documents for REGISTERED .CN names registered by Chinese Domestic Registrants. If you are our .CN customer and from mainland China, you will get a call from our customer support shortly, advising you to submit your National ID or Business Certificate to us as soon as possible. Or please call us if you have any other enquiries regarding how to submit your documents.

To date,  CNNIC has not formally stated if they will be requiring the verification of existing registrations by international registrants.   As soon as we hear back from CNNIC with any new details related to existing registrations, we will inform you immediately.

Instra Corporation

As of February 1st 2010, Instra will start accepting .LU domain applications with special characters which are those commonly used in Luxembourgish, German and French languages.

There are two phases:

Sunrise Period starts from February 1st 2010 to March 31st 2010. During this sunrise period owners of registered .LU names will be able to register the identical names with special characters. Go Live Periodcommences from April 1st 2010. Registrations will be open for everybody and performed on a “first-come, first-served basis”.

On January 5, 2010, the China network Information Center (CNNIC) announced that all new .CN domain registrations will be temporarily suspended from overseas registrars from 18:00PM (Beijing time) on January 6, 2010.

At the end of 2009, CNNIC released more restrictive rules and regulations by requesting hard copies of registrant company certificates and signatures. The Registry has now implemented a new auditing system of all new .CN domain registrations in order to enhance the authenticity, accuracy and integrity of the domain name information. Due to these changes, some registrars have had to suspend new . CN domain registrations due to the difficulty this new process represents.

Furthermore, CNNIC sent out a notice on January 5th to suspend all new applications from overseas registrars. It is said that CNNIC is considering conducting audits on existing .CN domains as well.

At this stage there is no information as to when this suspension will end. Europe registry will keep you posted with any new updates from CNNIC.