.nu

Categories: Country code top-level domains | Niue

.nu is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to the island state of Niue. It was one of the first ccTLDs to be marketed to the Internet at large as an alternative to the gTLDs .com, .net, and .org. Playing on the phonetic similarity between nu and new, it was promoted as a "new" TLD in which there was an abundance of good domain names available.

The domain was, and to some extent still is, particularly popular in Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium, where the word for "now" is nu. Partially owing to restrictive domain rules for the ccTLD assigned to Sweden, .se, .nu was used for creative marketing of websites such as www.TV.nu. However, the .se domain was generally considered more professional than .nu and .com. The .nu domain also allowed for non-Internationalized domain name domains containing accented characters (used in the Scandinavian languages).

In Russia nu (more precisely - "ню", as borrowed from the French language and pronounced as "nyu") can mean nude or naked, consequently the .nu domain contains a number of sex-related sites.

Internet Users Society - Niue administers the TLD in some tension with the Niuean government, which itself snubs its own country's TLD and instead uses a .com address for its official government site, which Internet purists see as an abuse because .com is intended (under RFC 1591) for use by commercial entities, not governments.

A 2005 UDRP case regarding nudomain.com[1] made the assertion under "Factual background" that "The Complainants [WorldNames, Inc. and NU Domain Ltd] own and operate the .NU ccTLD". The companies in question are operating the registry for .nu on behalf of the Internet Users Society, but it is incorrect to state that they "own" the TLD, as TLDs in general are delegated and managed rather than "owned". The case does, however, point out that these companies own a registered trademark to ".nudomain" in several countries.

External links

• IANA WHOIS record for .nu
• Budget Statement 2004 - 2005 Financial year (Scroll to the section "Sovereign Assets" for a characterization of that tension in the official government site, now under .com.)
• Internet Users Society - Niue (IUSN)