Latest TLD news - December 2020

December TLD news is as follows:

Australia: The big one for Australian (and global) brands is that .au will launch new licensing rules on April 12, 2021. Regarding the 90 day renewal cycle starting January 11, 2021, the following registrants should contact their account managers because of the these changes:
- foreign companies holding a com.au or net.au domain name where ‘Trademark’ has been used for eligibility AND the domain name is NOT an exact match of the words subject to the Australian Trade Mark application or registration;
- those holding a org.au domain name where ‘sporting or special interest club’ has been used for eligibility AND
- the club is not incorporated AND the domain name is NOT registered with Australian Charities and Not for Profit Commission (ACNC).
Switzerland, Liechtenstein and .swiss (.ch/.li & .swis)s: From January 1, 2021, personal data of the holder and the technical contact of .ch/.li or .swiss domains will no longer be published in the Whois for data protection reasons. This applies regardless of whether the holder is a private individual or a company.
Denmark (.dk:) During December, the registry will make it possible to register .dk domain names with the German character “ẞ”. Read about all the possible IDN characters here.
United States (.us): As already done for .co domains in October, we will disable the contact verification process s for .us domain names on January 12, 2021.
.Sports: The .sport registry introduces “earmarks”: Domains that are pre-marked at a lower price for specific categories of members of the sport community. The .sport Registry’s validation team will approve the registration if the registrant is the party – or one of the parties – for which that particular domain has been earmarked. The priority conditions are automatically applied when an earmarked domain is registered. Registration can be submitted during the normal “open” start phase.
.CEO: .ceo will change its Premium pricing on May 5, 2021. .ceo is uniquely positioned to offer premium professional identity for CEOs and their businesses.
Luxembourg (.lu) The .lu registry released 2,400 unregistered .lu domain names with one and two characters under the normal terms and conditions.

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Brandsec is a corporate domain name management and brand protection company that look after many of Australia, New Zealand and Asia’s top publicly listed brands. We provide monitoring and enforcement services, DNS, SSL Management, domain name brokerage and dispute management and brand security consultation services.