.dk
Encyclopedia
- For other uses, see DK (disambiguation).
.dk is the country code top-level domain
Country code top-level domain
A country code top-level domain is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, a sovereign state, or a dependent territory....
(ccTLD) for Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
. The supervision of the .dk top-level domain is handled exclusively by DK Hostmaster. Any new .dk domain name has to be applied for via an approved registrator. Then the domain name applicant can ask the registrator to manage his domain name or do it directly with DK Hostmaster. Registrations of domain names with the characters æ, ø, å, ö, ä, ü, and é are also allowed.
History
The country code top-level domain .dk was created July 14, 1987 at ARPA Network Information Center, Stanford Research Institute (SRI-NIC). The Danish UNIX User GroupDanish UNIX User Group
The Danish UNIX systems User Group is a computer user group which created and maintained the .dk internet domain for Denmark. Founded in 1983, DKUUG is a primary advisor on the Danish open source environment policies...
(DKUUG) at Datalogisk Institut, Københavns Universitet (DIKU) received management of the .dk domain on the DKnet, at that time an informal name used for the UUCP
UUCP
UUCP is an abbreviation for Unix-to-Unix Copy. The term generally refers to a suite of computer programs and protocols allowing remote execution of commands and transfer of files, email and netnews between computers. Specifically, a command named uucp is one of the programs in the suite; it...
network used at DIKU and other places in Denmark. The name DKnet has been in use since at least 1986.
In mid 1988 DKnet was connected to the emerging DENet
Denet
Denet was a French competitor in the sport of archery at the 1900 Summer Olympics. Denet competed in one event, the Au Cordon Doré at 50 metres competition. He took sixth place with a score of 26 points in the event, five points behind the leader, Henri Hérouin.-References:...
, the government-sponsored research network established in late 1987 now known as forskningsnettet, run and maintained by UNI-C.
In November 1987 DKUUG made a name agreement ("navneaftalen") with the coordinators of the three other networks then working in Denmark, a national experimental X.400
X.400
X.400 is a suite of ITU-T Recommendations that define standards for Data Communication Networks for Message Handling Systems — more commonly known as "email"....
net (EAN from University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
), EARN and DECnet
DECnet
DECnet is a suite of network protocols created by Digital Equipment Corporation, originally released in 1975 in order to connect two PDP-11 minicomputers. It evolved into one of the first peer-to-peer network architectures, thus transforming DEC into a networking powerhouse in the 1980s...
, concerning the .dk domain. They agreed to share it, hiding from the users which network they were connected to, and nullifying the use of pseudo-domains like .uucp
.uucp
The name uucp was a pseudo-domain-style suffix used in the 1980s when identifying a hostname not connected directly to the Internet, but possibly reachable through other inter-network gateways...
or second-level domains like gov.uk, thereby creating a practice that has been enforced ever since, and also applied in other countries.
By early 1992 UNI-C via DENet
Denet
Denet was a French competitor in the sport of archery at the 1900 Summer Olympics. Denet competed in one event, the Au Cordon Doré at 50 metres competition. He took sixth place with a score of 26 points in the event, five points behind the leader, Henri Hérouin.-References:...
(an acronym for "Danish Educational Network") serviced all the Universities in Denmark, and DIKU had no need for DKnet anymore. Thus DKUUG, with DKnet, moved to Symbion Science Park where they received their own international lines and started to lease these to companies, and modem
Modem
A modem is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to reproduce the original digital data...
connections to private consumers. The growing business quickly overshadowed the organization's own economy, forcing the creation of a separate company. In 1993, DKnet Aps, a genuine ISP
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
and Denmark's first, was established as a limited liability company (Aps).
In 1996, with the establishment of the Danish Research Network, the name "DENet" was used for the commercial part of the network and changed to be an acronym for "Dansk Erhvervs Net", i.e. Danish Business Network.
Tele Danmark takes over
On February 15, 1996, DKnet Aps, including the .dk domain management, was sold by DKUUG to Tele DanmarkTDC A/S
TDC A/S is the former telecom monopoly in Denmark. It is now privatized. Thus, it is the biggest company in all aspects of telecommunications in Denmark with landline, mobile, Internet, VHF maritime borderline-radio etc.By the end of 2004, the TDC Group had more than 13.4 mil. customers in Europe:...
(now TDC) at the price of 20 million DKK. Acknowledging the possible conflict of interest of a company (Tele Denmark) behind both a commercial ISP (DKnet A/S, now a stock company) and also in control of the .dk domain management (DK Hostmaster), a group of tele- and internet companies, 28 in all, including TeliaSonera
TeliaSonera
TeliaSonera AB is the dominant telephone company and mobile network operator in Sweden and Finland. The company has operations in other countries in Northern, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Spain, with a total of 150 million mobile customers...
, Global One, Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom AG is a telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is the largest telecommunications company in Europe....
, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, assembled five days after the purchase in order to gain control of the DK Hostmaster function.
Tele Danmark initially refused, and the group together formed the organisation Foreningen af Internetleverandører (FIL), and threatened to go directly to IANA
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority is the entity that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System , media types, and other Internet Protocol-related symbols and numbers...
to counter what they saw as a bona fide Tele Danmark monopoly. Tele Denmark agreed and FIL became the authority registered by IANA for the .dk domain, while the nominal and practical administration remained the responsibility of DKnet A/S. In June 1996 they signed a one-year contract about the practice and rules concerning the .dk domain, which would later be renewed for another year.
Race for the .dk domain
On January 15, 1997 at 15.00, FIL loosened the restrictions for registering a .dk domain name. Where one had previously needed a valid reason to register one, all restrictions were now removed, creating an unprecedented run on .dk domain names. By the end of 1996 there were only 6.500 registered .dk domains, by February 1, 1997 this had more than doubled and at the end of 1997 there were 41.000 registered .dk domains. This in turn created a series of legal actions, which would last well into the 2000s, not only against FIL’s own members, who were accused of using inside knowledge to register large amount of "good" domain names quickly, but also against individuals who were accused of cyber squatting.In December 1997 Tele Danmark announced that from the beginning of 1998 they would start collecting a yearly fee (of 340 DKK excluding VAT) for every registered domain name via DK Hostmaster. This caused a stir in FIL's members, as they had not been informed. While there had been talks about some sort of fee to DK Hostmaster to cover its expenses, no review of DK Hostmaster’s actual budget was available since it was financially all but a part of Tele Danmark. This was therefore seen by FIL as abuse of power and profit making via the supposedly non-profit DK Hostmaster organization.
It was later revealed that it was the board of directors
Board of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
of FIL (later fired) that had granted Tele Danmark the right to set the price that they wanted, without asking its members.
As a consequence of this, Tele Danmark announced in March 1998 that the commercial parts in DKnet A/S would be moved to Tele Denmark Internet and DKnet A/S, with its only remaining asset, DK Hostmaster, would be renamed to "DK Hostmaster A/S", and put up for sale. Tele Danmark encouraged a larger forum or group comprising more than just telecom and internet companies (like FIL) to form and buy it, because the Internet now had a much broader appeal. This caused yet another stir in FIL who flat-out rejected that Tele Denmark had the right to sell something it did not own.
DIFO takes over
In October 1998 FIL sent a letter to Tele Danmark ending the contract and agreement that had been signed back in June 1996 (renewed in 1997). The letter also stated that FIL wanted to take over the running of DK Hostmaster themselves. Tele Danmark denied that FIL could do this. In November 1998 FIL, on the invitation of the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and InnovationMinistry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Denmark
The Danish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Higher Education is the Danish ministry in charge of research, innovation and education above high school/upper secondary school....
, called a meeting between all actors on the Danish internet, companies as well as users, under the banner "ID MoU" ("Internet Danmark Memorandum of Understanding") in order to establish a long-term agreement on the administration of the .dk domain.
The result of "ID MoU" was that a number of institutions and organizations established a self-owning institution named Dansk INTERNET Forum (DIFO) on July 1, 1999, which with the help of external investment bought "DK Hostmaster A/S" in December 1999.
IPv6
DK Hostmaster has offered IPv6 glue records for second-level domains since April 4, 2008, when the first subdomain went live. IPv6 was enabled at the transport layer to TLD nameservers a few years prior to that.Just days prior to the World IPv6 day
World IPv6 Day
World IPv6 Day was an event sponsored and organized by the Internet Society and several large content providers to test public IPv6 deployment. It was announced on January 12, 2011 with five anchoring companies: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Akamai Technologies, and Limelight Networks. The event started...
, DK Hostmaster added an IPv6 address to their web server and that of its owner, DIFO.