ccTLDs with lifted or lightened restrictions

[aww]

I just caught these from news I missed late last year. If anyone can help find the lowest cost registrar for each of these, please help share (NP$ donations welcomed for these tips )

• .GR (Greece) is now unrestricted! There are no documentation, trademarks, or business registrations requirements, and there are no restrictions on the number or names of domains. (.gr website faq)
  
• .EC (Ecuador) top level extensions are now available. Ecuador is unrestricted so no local presence, business registration numbers, etc. are required. There is a two-year minimum registration period. (nic.ec price chart)
  
• VN (Vietnam) has opened up the .VN suffix to non-Vietnamese organizations and individuals. Previously it had not been possible for foreign companies to register domains under .VN.
  
• .SU (Soviet Union) open registration of domain names began in July 2003
  
• .ES (Spain) has changed its rules regarding generic terms. Generic terms (i.e. "paper.es") may be registered if the term appears in the company's name (i.e. White Paper Co.).
  Second level .ES domains are restricted, but third level are not.
  
• .IE (Ireland) has eased local presence requirements. Corporations can now register .IE domains using any Community Trade Mark (CTM). In the past, only Irish companies were allowed to register their domain names providing they could fulfill the requirements of an Irish address/contact person/phone/fax/email and Irish tax ID number. The local presence requirement is no longer necessary when registering a CTM as a domain name. Domain names must match either the company name or CTM.
  

 

[armstrong]

I believe the .SU is being phased out - http://www.iana.org/root-whois/su.htm

 

[DSL]

Yeah that would be weird because the Soviet Union does not exist anymore.

 

[g0ldy]

Are they buying the domains back or something?

 

[aww]

Very interesting article about .SU
http://www.whois.sc/news/2002-10/dot-su.html
$15,000 reg fee - yeaaah I'll take three dozen.

...in Soviet Union, you don't register domain, domain registers YOU!
(wah wah wah :lol: )

 

[InteractAsia]

15k? :tri:

 

[Anthony]

Well info on unrestricted country code domains is interesting, but why would I want to pay $50/yr. for an extension no one has heard of, even if it is a great keyword domain?

 

[aww]

Some words are valuable in any TLD, like "dvd"

And sometimes it's easier to remember a different TLD than a long word/phrase in a .com

whois.sc is a classic example of that,
compare to whoissource.com

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by aww
Some words are valuable in any TLD, like "dvd"

And sometimes it's easier to remember a different TLD than a long word/phrase in a .com

whois.sc is a classic example of that,
compare to whoissource.com

That's true, but I can only imagine a couple of cases like that.

And shouldn't whois.sc be compared with whois.com? In that case, it wouldn't be a better deal to use the cc domain. Of course, it's not like whois.com would be available...

 

[aww]

There have to be words that are valuable in ANY tld.

Like I said, DVD is one, SEX would be another. PORN also.

My mind is tired right now or I'd probably come up with a few more.