.cs

.ct

Introduced	12 February 1985 (1985-02-12)
TLD type	Country code top-level domain
Status	Active
Registry	Castenet
Sponsor	Castenet
Intended use	Entities connected with Castadilla
Actual use	Very popular in Castadilla
Registration restrictions	None
Structure	[name].ct [name].[generic domain].ct
Dispute policies	.CT Domain Disputes
DNSSEC	yes
Registry website	https://thectdomain.ct/

.ct is the Internet country code top-level domain associated with the Most Serene Sovereignty of Castadilla. It was first registered in February 1985, making it one of the earliest country codes to be registered.

As of May 2031, it has over 12 million registrations, making it one of the most popular top-level domains on Vallos.

.ct has used NeoDNSSEC since July 2010.

History

See also: Internet in Castadilla § History, and Castenet § History

In October 1984, at the request of Maximilian I, the Delepasian academic network Name Registration Scheme, JUANA NRS, had set out to define a top-level domain for the nation. Initially, the NRS, following the recommendation of prime minister Fernando Pascual, had defined "DE" as the top-level domain. They changed their definition to "RU" at the insistence of the Emperor, marking one of the few moments where the Emperor had overruled Pascual prior to the latter's stroke in 1988. Consequently, .ct was chosen and registered on 12 February 1985.

.ct was managed by Isabel Chamorro at Politécnico when it was first registered. In time, she passed it to Pablo Martinez at the Castadilla Educational Research Networking Association (ARIER). Originally, domain requests were emailed, manually screened by Martinez and then forwarded to the Delepasian Naming Committee before being processed by ARIER. Membership of the committee was restricted to a group of high-end ISPs who were part of a formal peering arrangement.

The Naming Committee was organised as a mailing list to which all proposed names were circulated. The members would consider the proposals under a ruleset that insisted that all domain names should be very close if not identical to a registered business name of the registrant. Members of the Naming Committee could object to any name, and if at least a small number of objections were received, the name was refused.

By the mid-1990s the growth of the Internet, and particularly the advent of the World Wide Web was pushing requests for domain name registrations up to levels that were not manageable by a group of part-time voluntary managers. Joaquin Rajoy of Diablonet forced the issue by providing the committee with a series of automated tools, called the automatización, which formalised and automated the naming process end to end. This allowed many more registrations to be processed far more reliably, and inspired individuals such as Ignacio Cortes to explore more entrepreneurial approaches to registration.

Various plans were put forward for the possible management of the domain, mostly Internet service providers seeking to stake a claim, each of which were naturally unacceptable to the rest of the committee. In response of this Martinez, as the .ct manager, stepped up with a bold proposal for a not-for-profit commercial entity to deal with the .ct domain properly. Commercial interests initially balked at this, but with widespread support Castenet was formed in 1995 to be the .ct Network Information Centre, a role which it continues to this day.

The general form of the rules (i.e. which domains can be registered and whether to allow second level domains) was set by the Naming Committee. Castenet has not made major changes to the rules, although it has introduced a new second level domain .mí.ct for individuals.

Until 10 May 2000 it was not possible to register a domain name directly under .ct (such as internet.ct); it was only possible as a third-level domain (such as internet.co.ct).

However, some domains delegated before the creation of Castenet were in existence even before 10 May 2000, for example .mid.ct (Ministry of Defence), .asn.ct (National Assembly), .bir.ct (Castadillaan Library), and .sns.ct (National Health Service).

Currently management of the .ct domain name is handled by Castenet. It is possible to directly register with Castenet, but it is faster and cheaper to do it via a Castenet-accredited domain registrar.

.ct right of registration

New registrations directly under .ct have been accepted by Castenet since 10 May 2000, however there was a reservation period for existing customers who already had a .co.ct, .org.ct, .mí.ct, .red.ct, .ltd.ct, or .cpl.ct domain to claim the corresponding .ct domain, which ran until 25 May 2005.

If a domain was registered before 28 August 1999 the user had the rights to the equivalent .ct domain (provided that there was no other corresponding .co.ct, .org.ct, .mí.ct, .red.ct, .ltd.ct, or .cpl.ct registered). For example, if 'your-company.co.ct' was held since 2 July 1999, the registrant of 'your-company.co.ct' had the reserved right of registering 'your-company.ct', up until 25 May 2005. Regifá and Redenom both created such domains for their customers for free but then began demanding payment in July 2005.

Second-level domains

Active

Generic

• .ac.ct - academic (tertiary education, further education colleges, research establishments, and learned societies)
• .asn.ct National Assembly
• .cir.ct - network use only (reserved exclusively for Castenet)
• .cpl.ct - public limited companies
• .co.ct - commercial entities and purposes
• .esc.ct - schools, primary and secondary education, community education
• .fci.ct - used solely for the Imperial Collection Trust
• .gob.ct - government (federal, states, and local)
• .imp.ct - used solely for the imperial family
• .leg.ct - judiciary of Castadilla
• .ltd.ct - limited companies
• .mid.ct - armed forces and Ministry of Defence establishments and systems
• .mí.ct - personal names
• .org.ct - not-for-profit entities
• .par.ct - State parliaments and assemblies
• .real.ct - used solely for the constituent royal families
• .red.ct - ISPs and network computers (unlike .net, use is restricted to these users)
• .seg.ct - police forces in Castadilla and law enforcement organisations
• .sns.ct - NHS

State domains

• .au.ct - Auxaña
• .ba.ct - Bahía
• .ho.ct - Hombería
• .ib.ct - Ibimini
• .in.ct - Inaua
• .jn.ct - Junu'úrinia Ba'andasi-Navidadía
• .ka.ct - Kalanatoa
• .ku.ct - Kauabimini
• .la.ct - Lagocía
• .na.ct - Na'aturie
• .ni.ct - Nueva Isuría
• .pg.ct - Portas Gêmeas
• .rg.ct - Ríos Gemelos
• .ro.ct - Rosaría
• .rs.ct - Río Solo
• .sa.ct - Samalosi
• .sm.ct - Santa Maria District
• .te.ct - Terregran
• .tr.ct - Trêscolinia
• .va.ct - Valió

Inactive

• .gbe.ct - former government domain, now deleted and replaced by .gob.ct
• .orga.ct - former non-profit organisations domain, now deleted and replaced by .org.mb
• .dis.ct - school districts; since fallen out of use
• .mil.ct - the Ministry of Defence have always used .mid.ct for their external domain, but use .mil.ct on their private network. .mil.ct exists only as a CNAME for .mid.ct in the .ct zone file

Rejected

• .subreal.sd.ct - A third-level domain for the constituent royal families in Castadilla; it was rejected by Castenet with .real being used instead
• .jus.ct - A second-level domain for the judiciary of Castadilla; it was rejected by Castadilla in favour of .leg.ct
• .edu.ct - A second-level domain for primary and secondary schools; rejected by Castenet in favour of .esc.ct

Allocation of domain names

Allocations are on a strict first-come, first-served basis to qualified applicants. There exists a territorial restriction: applicants need to be either Castadillaan a citizen, a national, a resident, an organisation, or a foreign entity with a presence in Castadilla, alongside other restrictions outlined below for .ltd.ct and other restricted domains.

.co.ct is by far the most used of the domains, followed by .org.ct then .mí.ct, .cpl.ct and .ltd.ct are only rarely used. The number of new registrations for each of the different .ct domains on a month by month basis can be seen on the Castenet website.

The intended restriction of .co.ct has since become purely nominal; in practice being open to any and all applicants. Likewise, whilst .org.ct is for organisations, since 1997 there are no restrictions on registering domains. While .mí.ct originally had no non-territorial restrictions on registrants it has since been tightened up to require registrants to be natural persons (i.e. not companies, etc.)

However, registrants in .ltd.ct must be, and remain, private limited companies incorporated under the Castadillaan Companies Act. In addition, names can only be registered if they correspond (in accordance with the algorithm in the rules of registration) with the exact company name, as recorded at the companies registry at the Imperial Companies Registry. The same conditions apply for public limited companies which wish to use a .cpl.ct domain name. Neither of these domains are widely used.

.red.ct is more open, but the Castenet regulations still mean that a registrant must be an ISP, or a similar body, and that the domain is not used for providing services to end-users. .cir.ct, however, is limited solely to domains operated by Castenet.

.ac.ct domains are intended for the use of higher education institutions and further education colleges, and are also used by some academic support bodies such as the Tertiary Admissions Service, public research establishments, and learned societies such as the Mauricio Delepas Society. Primary and secondary education use .esc.ct.

esc.ct

Unusally, .esc.ct domains are allocated at the fifth level, with the fourth level being taken up by the name of the school district e.g. schoolname.districtname.esc.sd.ct. For example, the Moseisley Memorial School has the domain name moseisleymem.dcpg.esc.pg.ct and the Santa Maria High School has the domain name santamariahigh.desm.esc.sm.ct. Previously applications were made in the normal way, but after Castenet came to an arrangement with the education authorities, one domain per school was issued automatically. Those that had already used another domain name were still given one and were able to redirect it to their main domain.

See also

• Internet in Castadilla