Corona and domain names
The corona pandemic impacts the world and unfortunately some persons are misusing this pandemic for their own gain. Many governments and registries adopt special procedures around domains that are related to corona, mostly based on keywords in the domain name (corona, covid, facemask, ...). If you register such domain, you may find that the delegation on the internet is delayed, or the registry asks the registrant for more information.
Although each registry has its own details, the following are the most common actions:
- Registries may delay delegation in the zone file of corona related domain names. That means that a domain name is not immediately available on the internet.
- Registries may ask the registrant to confirm their data, for example by uploading proof of identity.
- Registries may check domain names that are corona related and send a "notice and takedown" request to the registrar. We will suspend the domain names in such cases if no sufficient response is received.
- Registries may delete domain names that they flag as abusive.
In general, if you have registered a domain name that can be related to corona and that domain name is not activated as usual, first check the details (legitimacy) of the registrant, your own e-mail and ask your customer / registrant to check his e-mail to see if there was a request for further information on the domain name. If not and the domain name does still not resolve after 48 hours, you can contact us for more information.