.укр

History

In June 2008 the ICANN approved a document that foresees the introduction of high-level domain names in Cyrillic and other national non-Latin alphabets.

On 17 November 2009, Ukraine initiated an application to ICANN for assignment of the Cyrillic top-level domain name 'укр'. Already in December 2008 the Company Center for Internet names of Ukraine had announced the registration of domain names in two new top-level domains 'укр' and 'блог' (transliterated: bloh). The full set of required documents was submitted to ICANN on 26 November 2009 by the Ukrainian Network Information Center (UNIC). Ukraine was one of the first countries that applied for the creation of domains in their native writing system, following Russia, Egypt and China.

The domain was expected to be available in the first half of 2010 since assignment of top-level domain takes about a month. In November 2009 UNIC Director Yuriy Honcharuk expected the new domain to start operating on the Internet in February–March 2010.

On 1 March 2011, ICANN announced that the .укр domain had passed string evaluation, the step before delegation.

.укр was approved by the ICANN Board on 28 February 2013. The zone was added to the root servers on 19 March 2013. The very first two domains were тест.укр (xn--e1aybc.xn--j1amh) and уміц.укр (xn--l1ank7d.xn--j1amh). In Ukrainian "тест" stands for "test", and "уміц" stands for "Український Мережевий Інформаційний Центр", Ukrainian Network Informational Centre. According to UNIC Director Honcharuk, registration of .укр domain names could begin in the summer of 2013. On 21 August 2013 the first such site got active — президент.укр (president.ukr). Before the end of 2013, many sites were active.

Doubts about registration

In June 2008 President Oleksandr Olshansky of the Ukrainian Internet company Internet Invest considered it unlikely that .укр would be assigned by ICANN. According to Olshansky the existing rules for non-Latin domain names stipulate that at least one letter should differ in the shape from the corresponding Latin character. The country name Україна (Ukraine) does not contain any letter whose shape does not exist in any Latin language. In November 2009 UNIC Director Yuriy Honcharuk had stated there were no technical issues preventing the assignment of this Cyrillic domain. Latin ccTLDs contain two letters, whereas .укр contains three, which makes it recognizably distinct, especially with the lack of any such suffix as ".ykp".

References

References

1. [https://research.domaintools.com/statistics/tld-counts/ Domain Count Statistics for TLDs - DomainTools]
2. [https://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/market-operator-cyrillic-ukr-domain-unlikely-to-be-53127.html Market operator: Cyrillic .укр domain unlikely to be registered] {{Webarchive. link. (2021-11-18 , [[Kyiv Post]] (November 18, 2009))
3. link. (2012-02-25 , [[Ukrinform]] (November 17, 2009))
4. {{in lang. ru [http://korrespondent.net/tech/technews/672993 В Украине появятся кирилличные домены .Укр и .Блог] {{Webarchive. link. (2009-12-02 , [[Korrespondent]] (December 9, 2008))
5. [https://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/cyrillic-ukr-domain-to-start-operating-on-internet-53772.html Cyrillic .ukr domain to start operating on Internet in Feb-March 2010] {{Webarchive. link. (2021-11-18 , [[Kyiv Post]] (November 27, 2009))
6. {{in lang. ru [http://www.bagnet.org/news/summaries/ukraine/2009-11-17/32435 Украина регистрирует национальный интернет-домен «.укр»] {{Webarchive. link. (2011-07-25 , bigmir)net (November 18, 2009))
7. {{in lang. ru [http://lenta.ru/news/2009/10/23/segment/ Русскоязычная доменная зона .РФ заработает в ноябре] {{Webarchive. link. (2013-02-05 , [[Lenta.Ru]] (October 24, 2009))
8. {{in lang. link. (2011-07-23 , (November 17, 2009))
9. [http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-01mar11-en.htm IDN ccTLD Request From Ukraine Successfully Passes String Evaluation] {{Webarchive. link. (2011-05-14 , ICANN (March 1, 2011))
10. {{in lang. uk [http://life.pravda.com.ua/technology/2013/03/1/122312/ Україна отримала кириличний домен ".укр".] {{Webarchive. link. (2020-11-23 ''According to experts, in Ukraine ". укр" will be some 200,000 domain names'', [[Ukrayinska Pravda]] (1 March 2013). Retrieved 5 May 2015.)
11. (March 21, 2013). ".УКР is going live". Habr.
12. {{in lang. ru [http://www.ukr.net/news/v_zone_ukr_pojavilis_pervye_domeny-19230583-1.html В зоне .УКР появились первые домены ''Zone .укр appeared first domain''] {{Webarchive. link. (2013-12-13, [[ukr.net]] (21 March 2013))
13. Registration is allowed both in [[Russian language in Ukraine. Russian]] and in [[Ukrainian language. link. (2021-11-18 , [[Interfax-Ukraine]] (21 August 2013))
14. link. (2011-09-30 , Who.is
    [http://unian.net/products/d_detail.php?id=70169 UNIAN Stock Market] {{Webarchive). link. (2011-08-13 , [[UNIAN]] (June 11, 2008))
15. "domain launch periods".