Soviet Union domain becomes broadly available

The Russian Foundation for Internet Development has opened up registrations for domain names in the '.su' (Soviet Union) country-code top-level domain (ccTLD). This follows a priority registration period, which was designed to allow trademark owners to register their trademarks as domain names.

The domain is administered by the RU Centre, which also administers the existing '.ru' ccTLD. It is intended that the new '.su' ccTLD will exist alongside '.ru', giving businesses and individuals in the former Soviet republics greater opportunity and choice when registering their domain names.

Registration requests will be processed once they are judged to comply with the appropriate regulations. In order to complete a registration, the registrant will be obliged to (i) sign a written services agreement, and (ii) pay a registration fee of $100 per domain name, per year.

Heather Rowe, Lovells, London