FAQs

You will not be charged any cost by DENIC if you make use of the options following below within the period set in the TRANSIT letter:

1. Provider transfer – You choose to keep the domain, i.e. transfer it to a new provider with the help of the provider transfer password (AuthInfo)

2. Domain deletion – You choose to definitely give up your position as holder of the domain by submitting a deletion request.

You can submit a deletion request or generate your individual provider transfer password (AuthInfo) directly via our TRANSIT Service Center. Simply log in with your personal TRANSIT password we sent to you with our TRANSIT letter. You will be guided through the procedure step by step.

Please note: If you do not react within the period set in the TRANSIT letter, i.e. if

• payment in full has not been made, or
• no provider transfer has taken place, or
• the domain has not been deleted,

DENIC will terminate the domain contract without notice and delete the domain. The legal basis for this is Section 7 (2) (k) of the DENIC Domain Terms and Conditions. Therefore, it is essential that the domain holder reacts to the TRANSIT letter in order to avoid an unintended termination of the domain contract.

As soon as we have received your payment, we will automatically send an invoice to the e-mail address of the domain holder that is stored in our database.

When a domain holder registers a .de domain they do not only enter into a service agreement with their provider but at the same time conclude the domain contract with DENIC. If the domain holder terminates only the service agreement with the provider, the domain contract with DENIC is not affected by this termination and remains valid. The provider who has stopped to administer the domain passes the domain on to the TRANSIT service of DENIC for further clarification.

If this situation applies to your domain and you have already received a TRANSIT letter including a demand for payment from DENIC but want the domain to be deleted, we offer the following accommodation: You will not be charged any fees if you delete the domain now in our TRANSIT Service Center. Simply log in with your personal TRANSIT password we sent to you with our TRANSIT letter. You will be guided through the procedure step by step.

DENIC sends you a demand for payment when your domain has been transferred to the DENIC TRANSIT service because your provider no longer administers the domain. For the TRANSIT procedure to be performed, the domain is transferred to direct administration by  DENICdirect. The TRANSIT service ensures that you do not inadvertently lose your domain. It is a service with cost.

DENIC has sent you as the domain holder a TRANSIT letter. This letter informs you that your domain has obtained the TRANSIT status and explains which steps you must now take. The letter also requests you to pay the costs incurred by the administration through DENICdirect.

In case you decide against having your domain administered by the service DENICdirect, we offer the following accommodation: DENIC will not charge you any costs, if you

1. Select a new provider to administer the domain in the future by carrying out a provider transfer, or

2. Delete the domain by submitting a deletion request and thus definitely give up your position as holder of the domain within the period set in the TRANSIT letter.

Please note: If the TRANSIT period expires and you have neither transferred nor deleted the domain nor made any payment, DENIC will terminate the domain contract without notice and delete the domain. The legal basis for this is Section 7 (2) (k) of the DENIC Domain Terms and Conditions. Therefore, it is essential that you as the domain holder react to the TRANSIT letter in order to avoid an unintended termination of the domain contract.

You always receive a reminder by e-mail if there has been no reaction to our TRANSIT letter until shortly before the deadline expires.

If your domain is placed in TRANSIT, DENIC informs you accordingly by letter to the domain holder's postal address recorded in our database. If there is no reaction to this letter, we remind you by e-mail of the options you have as a domain holder.

If your domain is placed in TRANSIT, DENIC informs you accordingly. You as the domain holder can then decide within the set period what is going to happen with the affected domain. You have three options:

1. You choose to continue to have the domain administered by DENICdirect by paying the charges for the service.

2. Provider transfer – You choose to keep the domain, i.e. transfer it to a new provider with the help of the provider transfer password (AuthInfo).

3. Domain deletion – You choose to definitely give up your position as holder of the domain by submitting a deletion request.

If you have our postal TRANSIT letter on hand, you can submit a deletion request or generate your individual provider transfer password (AuthInfo) directly via our TRANSIT Service Center. Simply log in with your personal password we sent to you with our letter. You will be guided through the procedure step by step.

If you no longer have the postal TRANSIT letter, the same options are available to you with our TRANSIT forms.

The provider that administers your domain is your first contact for all issues related to your .de domain. But what if you no longer know or are not sure who is the provider that administers your domain?

You may proceed as follows:

• Enter the domain name in the DENIC domain query. In the information that is displayed, a "General Request" contact point is stated under "Information for establishing contact".

• With this e-mail address or with the online form made available you can establish contact to the party administering your domain. Please note that this contact point does not necessarily lead directly to your provider. You can, however, obtain information who the provider of your domain is.

Since the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) became effective in May 2018, DENIC no longer records an administrative contact (Admin-C) for reasons of data economy. Consequently, no contact data is available.

According to item VI of the DENIC Domain Guidelines, the domain holder is obliged to provide accurate and complete data – including an e-mail address – with the domain request.

If this obligation is not fulfilled, you as the domain holder risk the loss of your domain, as incorrect or missing data entitle DENIC to terminate the domain contract without notice. This also applies to the TRANSIT procedure, if no valid e-mail address has been stored that can be used for the communication between you as the domain holder and DENIC.

For storing your correct e-mail address, please contact your current provider or, if the domain is undergoing the TRANSIT process, your future provider or DENIC directly.

DENIC is responsible for operating the name servers for the Top Level Domain .de.

The authoritative name servers for this zone can be found at

https://www.denic.de/en/service/name-service/

Probably the easiest way of explaining how ENUM works is to give you an example. Let us suppose you want to call DENIC.  You dial the following number: +49 69 27 235 0. If your telephone terminal supports ENUM, it transcribes the number as 0.5.3.2.7.2.9.6.9.4.e164.arpa.

Next, an inquiry about 0.5.3.2.7.2.9.6.9.4.e164.arpa is submitted to the Domain Name System (DNS).

This inquiry retrieves the transcription and resolution rules, i.e. the so-called Naming Authority Pointer (NAPTR) Resource Records. The output is a URI for accessing IP-based applications. These addresses can be reached via the Internet. One of these is now selected for use for continuing the communication. Let us assume that the DNS outputs the following:
 IN NAPTR 10 10 "U" “E2U+sip“ "!^.*$!sip:zentrale@denic.de!" .

IN NAPTR 20 10 "U" “E2U+voice:tel“ "!^.*$!tel:+4969272350!“ .
 
 
 You, the caller, want to set up a voice link through the Internet, so the system selects the NAPTR-RR
 
 IN NAPTR 10 10 "U" “E2U+sip“ "!^.*$!sip:zentrale@denic.de!" .
 
 The terminal application now sets up a communication link with the selected address through the Session Initiation Protocol.

A NAPTR RR (Naming Authority Pointer Resource Record) is an entry in the Domain Name System (DNS) containing rules for transcribing inquires. The result is returned to the application making the inquiry. For resolving ENUM, this means that an inquiry about an ENUM domain is handled according to the appropriate rules and answered with a URI (Uniform Resource Identifier). This URI provides the output address and the protocol to be used for further communication.

For example, an inquiry to the DNS about 0.5.3.2.7.2.9.6.9.4.e164.arpa results in the return of the following NAPTR RR.

IN NAPTR 10 10 "U" "E2U+sip" "!^.*$!sip:zentrale@denic.de!" .
IN NAPTR 20 10 "U" "E2U+voice:tel" "!^.*$!tel:+4969272350!" .

Each NAPTR RR has the following format:
Class Type Order Preference Flags Service Regexp Replacement

  The preference value 10 causes the selection of the NAPTR record:
 IN NAPTR 10 10 "U" "E2U+sip" "!^.*$!sip:zentrale@denic.de!" .
 The telephone number used for the inquiry is mapped to an SIP address. The result is thus a URI. This is arrived at by interpreting the regular expression "!^.*$!sip:zentrale@denic.de!", which means that the complete inquiry string 0.5.3.2.7.2.9.6.9.4.e164.arpa is to be replaced by the string sip:zentrale@denic.de.

You find a wide range of information and all the documents you need on our website under direct.denic.de and in the special FAQs for DENICdirect customers.  

If you need any information you do not find there, the DENICdirect Customer Service will be glad to help you.

Yes. As a provider, you can register .de domains through DENICdirect on behalf of your customers. You will find information about the alternatives of registering online or by registration form on the DENICdirect service center.

If you look up your homepage in your browser and find that it is no longer being displayed, you should contact your provider and explain the problem to him.

The information page you see is a special web page set up by DENIC. The domain holder currently has no Internet presence under this URL.

If you yourself are the holder of the domain concerned, please get in touch with the customer service of DENIC eG:

DENIC eG
Theodor-Stern-Kai 1
60596 Frankfurt am Main
Germany

Our service staff is available
from Monday to Thursday, 8:00 to 18:00 CE(S)T and
Friday 8:00 to 16:00 CE(S)T:

Phone
National: (069) 27 235 270
International: +49 69 27 235 270

Fax
National: (069) 27 235 238
International: +49 69 27 235 238

e-mail: direct[at]denic[dot]de

For administration by the DENICdirect service DENIC charges EUR 116,00 per .de domain for the first year, i.e. the year in which the domain is registered with DENICdirect. Thereafter, the administration fee is EUR 58.00 per domain and year. For further information, please go to the DENIC Price List.

Please note that the DENICdirect service does not include any technical services, such as e-mail account or web space. These services are provided exclusively through Internet service providers. You will find some potential providers on the DENIC List of Members.

A domain registration through DENICdirect incurs greater costs for DENIC than processing a domain registration submitted by our members. Thus, the prices charged by DENICdirect are often higher than those of providers.

No. It is not possible for a .de domain to be registered faster by going through DENICdirect rather than one of DENIC's members. All registrations are handled by the same electronic registration system on a strict “first come, first served” basis. This procedure ensures that no source requesting a domain registration is given precedence over the others.

Provided the registration form submitted to us is accurate and complete, processing normally takes no more than 2 working days.

Important!
The registration form we provide online is not the contractually binding order. It is merely a convenient way of entering the complete necessary data and facilitates trouble-free processing. Please print out the registration form, have it signed by a duly authorized person and send it to the address indicated in this form.

E.164 is a recommendation issued by the ITU (ITU-T Rec. E.164) for the international telephone-number plan. An E.164 number is made up of decimal digits only and must satisfy particular requirements as regards its structure, length and uniqueness. As part of the number plan, the individual countries have been assigned particular national codes (Germany, for instance, has 49). All this is described in the Annex to ITU-T Rec. E.164.

.arpa is an infrastructure domain that is used as the Top Level Domain for ENUM domains. e164.arpa is a Second Level Domain. The individual national codes are placed under e164.arpa. German numbers, for instance, are mapped under 9.4.e164.arpa.

In the case of infrastructure domains, the name is not of decisive importance, since users do not need to use it directly. What is much more important is reliable supervision of the system and its stable technical operation.

Reliable system supervision has been taken care of, since the .arpa domain is accessible via all root-name servers. Independence of operation is also guaranteed, since the e164.arpa domain is to be looked after by RIPE NCC. That has been determined in the Agreement that came from the ITU.

DENICdirect does not grant any discount for multiple domain registration.

To transfer your .de domain to a provider of your choice, DENICdirect needs a form in order to register an AuthInfo (provider transfer password) for your domain. Please send the form to DENICdirect.

Upon receipt of the form, DENICdirect will enter the AuthInfo for your domain in the DENIC database. Please communicate the AuthInfo you selected to your new provider as well, so that the provider can complete the provider transfer.

There is, in fact, no direct link between these two types of domains. For instance, www.0800-6666666-call-me.de is a "catchy" name for a website offering various Internet services.

The ENUM domain to which the telephone number 0800 6666666 is mapped would be 6.6.6.6.6.6.6.0.0.8.9.4.e164.arpa. This domain is clearly less suitable for entering in the address line of a browser. It could, however, be used by the application is such a way that when the telephone number 0800 6666666 is dialled a DNS inquiry establishes various services (telephone, e-mail, webpage, etc.) that are available for the particular service. Assuming the end user has an application that can show web pages, it might be possible to call the site www.0800-6666666-call-me.de and the connection would be established that way.

The big achievement of the Domain Name System (DNS) is that it greatly simplifies what would otherwise be a painstaking process using unwieldy IP numbers. By assigning each service to a domain, it is possible to address it through a meaningful name. The service for assigning names is available across networks. This has been by no means the least significant factor that has contributed to making the Internet so popular for broad sections of the population.

So why then should ENUM now bring numbers back to the setting up of communication links?
 The first point to make is that that has so far been the usual way to make telephone calls! Modern VoIP communication protocols, such as the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), do, however, use addresses that are similar to e-mail, which, in turn, are much easier to manage. If, however, the only device available for calling communication services is a simple telephone set (with the numeric keypad as its only input device) then there is no other choice than to use numeric addresses, i.e. telephone numbers. The function of ENUM is to provide a technology that enables Internet communication and conventional telephone services to be linked to one another. The use of ENUM makes it simple for a subscriber in the conventional telephone network to call another subscriber in the Internet.

Any user who happens to have a more sophisticated terminal device can also call their communication partner by means of a simple mnemonic address, such as sip:user@domain.tld.

In future, the simple way of addressing all individually allocated services via a single contact address might be through a domain with a format like firstname.surname.domain.TLD. An inquiry to the DNS would then return a NAPTR Resource Record. This would contain the user's telephone number as well as his/her other addresses for individual services. The application making the inquiry would then be able select one of these addresses and use it for the communication (telephone call, e-mail, http query and so on and so forth).

The initial test phase primarily involves general testing of the potential opened up by the new ENUM technology. That means developing scenarios and adding the requisite ENUM functions to the necessary software and hardware. Information on experience and findings ought to be made freely available to all trial participants and test partners throughout the field trial. DENIC's contribution includes a public mailing list and the publication of reports on already implemented testbeds.
 The Final ENUM-Field-Report is available in english.

Before you pay anything, first of all take the time to check calmly what precisely it is that the payment is being demanded for. Make sure to always read the small print too.

Invoices for registering your .de domain and other services associated with it are sent to you only by the provider you yourself have commissioned to render these services. You will only receive an invoice from DENIC if you are a customer of our DENICdirect service.

Genuine written communication from DENIC is easy to recognize by

• the unmistakable letterhead with the DENIC logo;
• the explicit indication of the postal address of DENIC plus phone and fax number and e-mail as well as a contact at DENIC;
• the explicit indication of the DENIC value added tax identification number (USt-IdNr.) and the bank details;
• the explicit indication of the domain(s) concerned.

Our attention has been drawn to cases in which other companies have demanded payments from domain holders. These letters can be mistaken as invoices from DENIC. Thus, if another company unknown to you asks you for money for a domain service, you should check very carefully if the demand for payment is justified. If you have any doubt at all, you should contact the customer service department of your provider.

The registration of a .de domain can be arranged through any provider who is either a DENIC member themselves or who works with a DENIC member. The usual practice is that registration will be offered to you as part of the package of planning your Internet presence or that it will be an automatic part of an Internet-access package.

Once you have decided in favour of a particular provider, you can also apply to register your domain directly through them. We would ask you to understand that we are unable to give any prices for the registration of .de domains in cases like this since, each provider decides themselves what to charge.

If you don't want to have your domain registration undertaken by a provider, you have the alternative of entrusting it to our DENICdirect service. We will then charge our services to you in accordance with the most recent DENIC price list. In arriving at your decision, please consider that we will not provide you with any additional Internet services, such as web space or e-mail accounts. These are services that you will then have to organize yourself or order from a provider. For these reasons, most domain holders prefer to have registration handled by a provider.

Regardless of the route by which you arrange to have your domain registered, a contractual relationship is created between you as the domain holder and DENIC as the registry. To conclude the contract, it is necessary that the registration is in compliance with the conditions stipulated in DENIC's Domain Guidelines. The contractual provisions are summarized in DENIC's DomainTerms and Conditions.

DENIC always registers domains on a “first-come, first-served” basis. If someone else registered before you, the only thing you can do initially is to settle for a different name for your domain.

If you have a right to the domain, please also read our information about the DISPUTE procedure.

There are several possible explanations for this phenomenon:

When a domain is registered with DENIC, it is immediately visible via our whois service, so it is then possible to access certain data about the domain, in particular, the name of its holder. At the same time, technical data is added to the DENIC database regarding the domain's connectivity. Providing connectivity data involves indicating between two and five name servers through which the domain information is available or arranging for at least one direct entry (NSentry) to be made on the DENIC name server.

Once a domain has been fully connected, it is possible to use it to process various services (www, e-mail, ftp, etc.), but it is not mandatory to do so. What this means is that although "de-beispieldomain.de" has been registered, there doesn't have to be a host called "www.de-beispieldomain.de". There are no rules that lay down which services must be provided through a domain, and certainly there is no obligation whatsoever to create a homepage. It is possible for domain holders to decide to use their domains solely for the functions of transmitting e-mail or for file transfers using ftp. The use a domain (in whatever way) at any given point in time cannot be verified either technically or administratively. There would thus be no point in making the effective use of a domain into a precondition for its registration.

Another possibility is that the elusive domain does have its associated homepage, but that its server istemporarily inaccessible.

There is also the possibility that you have made a mistake in entering the URL.

It might be that the technical data have changed since you last accessed it (which will already be documented in our whois database), but that DENIC has not yet generated a new .de zone with the latest information.

In no circumstances does the inaccessibility of a website bestow any sort of right on you to demand its deletion. You can't call for the deletion of any website producing a message such as "under construction" either.

The data about a domain, which includes its holder, are recorded by DENIC when the domain is registered.

If a party has a legitimate interest, DENIC can communicate the data of the holder of a domain. For more details please refer to our specific information and the forms you need.

All information is made availlable to you on our website in section Nameserver  NSentry Data.

All information is made availlable to you on our website in section Nameserver  NSentry Data.

What ENUM is all about is telephone-number mapping; it is a protocol which connects resources form the telecommunications and Internet areas. It defines a rule which is used to map telephone numbers onto domains in an unambiguos way. These domains can then be used for the identification of various communication services. Examples include numbers for fax and mobile telephony, voice-mail systems, e-mail addresses, IP telephony addresses, web pages, GPS coordinates, call diversions or unified messaging. The procedure is documented in RFC3761.

The only numbers that can be registered as ENUM domains at DENIC are those that belong to the German national telephone-number space (+49).

During the initial trial phase, the following telephone numbers are permitted as ENUM domains and as entries in the NAPTR record: 

• Geographic numbers: area code + subscriber number with a maximum of 15 digits inkcl. national-number
• Mobile telephone numbers belonging to the bands: (0)15 + subscriber number, (0)16 + subscriber number, (0)17 + subscriber number
• National free-phone numbers: (0)800 + subscriber number
• Personal numbers: (0)700 + subscriber number
• VoIP-Numbers: (0)32 + subscriber number

DENIC is envisaging adding other telephone numbers as the trial develops and is also planning to clarify other framework conditions.

ENUM creates a whole series of new communication possibilities: 

• Conventional terminal equipment with only twelve keys (0-9, * and #) can make use of Internet services.
• Telephone calls via Interent free of charge: The connection between two "traditional" telephone systems with IP connection is established via the Internet, if the telephone system of the caller is suited for ENUM and the dialled number is ENUM-registered. So no phone call charges are incurred, which can mean tremendous cost savings particularly for large companies or organizations.
•  Re-direction of SMS and faxes to e-mail boxes: This may be an additional feature provided by the telephone network. But Internet programs are also able to interpret ENUM entries directly and thus send a scanned-in fax image, for example, immediately to the desired e-mail address.
• The NAPTR entries help to set priorities in ENUM with regard to the communication line to be chosen. Example: First call the Internet phone; if you cannot reach me there, try the fixed-line service; if that attempt fails, call my mobile. But you can also choose all available terminal devices to be addressed simultaneously, i.e. the Internet telephone as well as the fixed-line end device and the mobile phone will all ring, when the corresponding number is called.
• Any network elements and services in the Internet can be found using one single telephone number.

The Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) run by ICANN is only one of the available channels for settling disputes about domains. It thus does not follow that all domain registries have to opt for it automatically. In point of fact, very few of the county code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) actually use ICANN's UDRP.

The motivation for setting up the ICANN dispute resolution procedure was that disputes involving generic Top Level Domains, such as .com, .net or .org, may result in an extremely complex mesh of international relations amongst the parties concerned. It is possible for the domain holder, the complainant and the registrar to be domiciled in three different countries, and it is even possible that the registry may be in a fourth country. Then it may happen that the competent court is not in the same country as the complainant, so the latter is forced to find an additional lawyer in that country, it may prove complicated to have official and court documents served, and the court hearing might be in a foreign language… The list of imponderables is virtually endless. Even assuming that all these hurdles can be overcome and the victorious party wins a court judgement, there is still the potential problem of getting that judgement executed on the territory of another country. From this brief description, it is clear that what is needed for tackling disputes concerning generic Top Level Domains is completely different from what is required when country code Top Level Domains, such as .de, are at stake.

In litigation involving .de domains, all the parties are often based in Germany, the case can be heard by a German court and a judgement can be secured quickly and for a moderate outlay.

The UDRP has another disadvantage in that it only comes into play for trademark infringements and malicious intent on the part of the domain holder, and the losing party still has the possibility of going before the ordinary courts afterwards. Moreover, in the case of the UDRP, it is the complainant who has to bear the costs of the procedure, whereas the practice of the German courts is for the losing party to bear the costs of litigation.

From the above it is clear that anyone holding rights to a name or a trademark would have no reason at all to want to opt for the UDRP procedure or a similar one for .de domains, since a German court hearing – combined with a DISPUTE entry at DENIC – represents an evidently superior alternative, given that it is both faster and cheaper.

Quite apart from all these considerations, the parties at dispute over a domain are perfectly free to refer their case to a dispute resolution procedure or even to a court of arbitration, if that is their preference.

ENUM is intended for anyone interested in gathering experience with the new technology as soon as possible and in building up their know-how.

This includes, for instance, the following: 

• Internet Service Providers who want to extend their systems for the registration of ENUM domains;
• Service Providers who want to use the advent of the new technology to build up new services for their clients;
• Developers of software and hardware applications who want to integrate ENUM support in their applications;
• Research departments and research institutions interested in bridge-building between the two worlds of the public-service telephone network (PSTN) and the Internet;
• End users with interest in technology who would like to build up their own first-hand experience with this particular new technology at an early stage of its development.

Of course, you must indicate the name of the domain you want. Apart from that, you must complete the printed application form or online application form with all the requested particulars concerning the domain holder, billing address and the technical data.

You will find further explanations about all the particulars we require in the DENIC Domain Guidelines.

Note:
Please note that the DENICdirect service does not include any technical services, such as e-mail account or web space. These services are provided exclusively through Internet service providers. You will find some potential providers on the DENIC List of Members.

You may use  to query .de and .9.4.e164.arpa domains and also any other domain under any NAST Top Level Domain. Please note, however, that for all domains under other TLDs (such as .com or .net domains) a generic test series will be performed, which does not take any TLD-specific settings into consideration. Hence, tests performed with the same name servers with identical configurations, for a .de and a .com domain for example, may lead to different results.

In case you do not know the requirements for the respective TLD, please contact the authoritative registry. You may consult the website of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority to find out this registry.

DENIC eG
Theodor-Stern-Kai 1
60596 Frankfurt am Main
Germany

e-mail: info[at]denic[dot]de

Phone
National: (069) 27 235 0
International: +49 69 27 235 0

Fax
National: (069) 27 235 235
International: +49 69 27 235 235

Our hotline is available
from Monday to Thursday, 8:00 to 18:00 CE(S)T
and Friday 8:00 to 16:00 CE(S)T:

Phone
National: (069) 27 235 270
International: +49 69 27 235 270

Fax
National: (069) 27 235 238
International: +49 69 27 235 238

e-mail: info[at]denic[dot]de

If you yourself are the holder of the ENUM domain concerned, you ought to contact your provider and tell them the correct data, so that it can be communicated to DENIC.

DENIC places at disposal the NAST tool for checking the name servers.

NAST (NAme Server Tester) is a tool that is used to check zones and name server configurations. It will help you to verify if the name servers for a domain are configured correctly and whether the zone is in accordance with the DENIC guidelines. It can be used to check domains that are already connected, as well as new domains that are not registered yet. It allows you to check your DNS data already before registration and thus helps you to avoid errors during the registration procedure.

If you want to have your domain administered by DENICdirect in future, you must complete a procedure called a Provider Change. Responsibility for administering your domain will then be transferred from your provider (or from the DENIC member your provider works with if the provider is not a DENIC member) to DENICdirect. If you want to carry out a Provider Change, you must first give notice on your existing domain contract with your current provider. The provider will send you a provider change password, the AuthInfo. You must communicate this password to DENICdirect who will then implement the provider change with the AuthInfo. To do this, please send DENICdirect a Provider change form that you have filled out completely and signed.

Provided your provider transfer request form is accurate, complete and duly signed, processing will normally take no more than two working days.

If you wish to register your domain with our service DENICdirect, you can choose between two types of services: "NSEntry" and "Nameserver".

DENIC NSEntry

This service allows up to five mailexchange- or address-entries within a domain. It is preferred, if you don't want to run your own nameservers. DENICsmall covers www.domain.de, ftp.domain.de and e-mail forwarding. The technical entries for the domain have to be specified.

DENIC Nameserver

This means delegation of the responsibility for a domain to at least two nameservers, that the customer specifies. All nameserver queries for this domain will be redirected to these responsible nameservers. The technical entries for the domain have to be specified.

A domain holder can initiate changes at any time (DENIC usually calls this process an UPDATE). We enter such changes into our system immediately. An update job can be used to modify the type of entry (NSEntry or Nameserver) as well as its contents. All updates must be in writing and must be submitted to DENIC as <media 768>complete jobs</media>. This update service is part of the maintenance covered by the registration fee and is thus not invoiced separately.

Important notice:

Domain registration through DENICdirect does not include any Internet access or any web space. You can only obtain these services from an Internet Service Provider (ISP). There are numerous ISPs to choose from and they also include many of DENIC's members.

To carry out a data update, we need an update form signed by the domain holder or his legal representative. Please print out the domain update form, and return the accurate and complete, duly signed form to DENICdirect.

Provided your update form is accurate, complete and duly signed, processing will normally take no more than two working days.

Please print out and complete the update form, have it signed by a duly authorized person and send it to the address indicated in this form.

The cost of changing the data of a .de domain administered by DENICdirect is included in the administration fee for your domain.

If you would like to change your data, please print out and complete the update form, have it signed by a duly authorized person and send it to the address indicated in this form.

DENIC is not an Internet service provider (ISP), so it does not make any technical services, such as Internet access, e-mail accounts or web space available for third parties.

These services are provided exclusively through Internet service providers. You will find some potential providers on the DENIC List of Members.

If you want to transfer a registered domain to a new holder, the first thing DENICdirect needs is a statement of transfer signed by the current domain holder. This must make it perfectly clear that the current domain holder is terminating his/her contract with us and transferring the totality of his/her rights and duties related to the domain to the new domain holder.

From the new domain holder we also need a domain-application form, which must be filled in completely and accurately, and signed. Please send the originals of these documents to the address indicated in the form.

Please also note that DENIC's Domain Terms and Conditions and its Domain Guidelines also apply in the event of transfers.

If you want to delete your domain, please print out the domain deletion form, fill it in accurately and completely, and return it - duly signed - to the address indicated in this form.

Please note:
Please note that deleting a domain does not relieve you of the duty to pay any domain fees that may be due.

Any domain fees you have already paid will not be refunded upon deletion, even if the period of time for which they were paid has not yet expired.

The DENIC zone files contain – roughly spoken – a list of all .de-domains together with information on the name servers that belong to them. DENIC does not hand over these zone files (or parts of it) to any third parties. Such disclosure would run counter to the imperatives of data protection and would undermine the defence of domain holders against possible abuse. Germany's Federal Data Protection Act is rather far-reaching in this respect. Protected "person-related data" includes not only information that is related directly to a particular individual, but also any data that could be used to identify individuals. Since it would be easy to combine the zone file with DENIC's whois query to extract data and to link them to individuals, the data contained in the zone file is protected because it is person-related.

Generally, DENIC collects and processes data about domains and their holders solely for the purpose of domain administration, and that does not require the zone file to be published. Moreover, from the perspective of domain administration, there are no circumstances in which a third party could justifiably need such a file. On the contrary: there would be a big danger of the zone file being used for activities that might jeopardize the interests of domain holders. Spammers or hackers might use it easily as a data source, since there are all existing .de-domains listed in the zone file. Combined with the whois query, these domain data could be person-related. Once the zone file had been published or rendered publicly available, DENIC would have lost any means of monitoring or influencing its use or of establishing and preventing any breaches of others' rights. Even the copyright that DENIC holds for the zone file, prohibiting unauthorized copies and further dissemination, would not provide any real protection.

In this respect, DENIC can be reasonably compared with a bank. No bank publishes a complete list of all the account numbers it has issued; in the same way, DENIC does not make the zone files available either.

RRI is the abbreviation of Realtime Registry Interface and is an realtime interface with which DENIC-members can send requests in realtime to the registration system.

The processing of domain requests has to go via a DENIC member. There are two interfaces which may be used by the members. If the Mail Registry Interface in used, DENIC first sends an acknowledgement of receipt to the member concerned. Incomming requests were processed requests immediately and the member receives either a confirmation of the processing or an error message. Currently, processing takes as a rule about five minutes (longer if our system happens to be undergoing maintenance). Alternatively, members can use the Realtime Registry Interface. In this case, the confirmation of the processing or an error message is received directly after transmitting the request.

But please note that your provider will need some time as well to process your application. Should there ever be a delay in processing your request, the first person to contact therefor is your provider, in order to make sure that they really have already submitted the job in your name and so that they can request a detailed report on the status of your job if there is an unusual delay.

A provider change runs in two phases: First you request your current provider to obtain an AuthInfo. Then the new provider can use this AuthInfo to move the domain.

At least four parties are involved in a provider change. These are the DENIC member who has been administering the domain to date, the DENIC member who is to take over administration in future, the domain holder and DENIC. If either the current provider and/or the future provider is not a member of DENIC, they will also both be involved in the process.

You, the domain holder, start the provider change process by telling your current provider that you want another provider to administer your domain in the future. In the next step, the current provider sends an AuthInfo to DENIC. If this provider is not a DENIC member, they first of all send the application to create an AuthInfo to the DENIC member with whom they cooperate. This member then forwards the application to DENIC. Before submitting any such application, the current provider must make sure that the change was really initiated by the domain holder and not by a third party.

You, as the domain holder, send the AuthInfo to your new provider, who will use it for the provider change request. Then the provider change is implemented and the data in DENIC's database are updated accordingly.

For additional information please refer to our special website.

Provided you complete the deletion or provider transfer from TRANSIT within the time limit set in the TRANSIT letter, DENIC does not charge you any fee for these actions.

To find out if and how much your new provider may perhaps charge you, you must contact the provider.

If you do not react within the period set in the TRANSIT letter, i.e. if

• payment in full has not been made, or

• no provider transfer has taken place, or

• the domain has not been deleted,

DENIC will terminate the contract of the domain going through the TRANSIT process without notice and delete the domain. The legal basis for this is Section 7 (2) (k) of the DENIC Domain Terms and Conditions. Therefore, it is essential that the domain holder reacts to the TRANSIT letter in order to avoid an unintended termination of the domain contract.

When we speak about the connectivity of a domain we refer to the provision of services that make it possible to reach it in the Internet. Under the Top Level Domain .de there are two alternative ways of ensuring the accessibility of a domain:

The first of this is a direct NSentry in the .de zone. The domain concerned is connected up directly via an address record (IN A or IN AAAA) or a mail-exchanger (IN MX) entry to the corresponding services.

The second is to connect the domain up through its own name server. In this case, the .de zone contains only a link to the appropriate name server.

Currently, administration of the IP address space worldwide is divided up over five different organizations: RIPE NCC, AfriNIC, ARIN, APNIC and LACNIC. . It is RIPE NCC in Amsterdam that is in charge of the European space.

RIPE NCC assigns big address blocks to its members, the Local Internet Registries (LIRs), and these, in turn, make addresses available to the users in their particular regions.

To become globally accessible, a newly registered domain must be included in the .de zone. Normally, this is done the next time the name servers are updated after the registration has been completed. The same applies to updates of name server records for domains that are already in the zone.

Normally, the update is implemented on a consistent basis, and afterwards the zone will include all changes that have been confirmed by DENIC prior to the update.

Several conditions have to be satisfied before a domain becomes accessible. Usually, your provider will enter your domain in his/her name server and set up the envisaged services before registering the domain for you. Your provider then sends a registration request to DENIC. When DENIC sends back its acknowledgement it means that the domain data has been added to our domain database. It does not, however, mean that the domain is immediately available everywhere in the world. It might be that you can already access your domain though your provider's name server, but other Internet users might go through other name servers, which will only be able to receive information about the new domain once it has been included in the .de zone.

Normally, DENIC reloads the .de zone on a consistent basis. You will find the reload times in the FAQ "How often are the .de name servers updated?".

If it happens that your domain is still not available for some Internet users even after this time, the reason might be that a particular name server has saved information in its cache to the effect that this domain does not exist and has not asked another name server about possible modifications. In such cases, you should contact your provider.

Yes. That can happen. What matters here is how much time you want to allow for the transfer. For all provider changes, we recommend you to allow a certain period of time during which your domain will be accessible through both providers. That will permit you to set up your new Internet presence without needing to rush. You can ask your old provider to establish a link that will simply pass on any incoming message to your new homepage, then to complete the formal Provider Change and, finally, to close down your old homepage.

The more thoroughly you plan it, the less likely there are to be problems. DENIC's recommendation is to plan for a transitional period of 1 week.

The initial request for the registration of a .de domain can only be submitted to DENIC through a company that is a member of the DENIC Cooperative or through our DENICdirect service. The same applies to any administrative measure affecting existing domains: it is still the same DENIC member or DENICdirect that is in charge. The DENIC member (or DENICdirect) in charge of administration is entered in the domain data at DENIC and is the sole organisation that has the right to submit orders from the domain holder to us to edit the domain data (such as a change of address or a deletion). If your provider is not on the list of DENIC members, they will cooperate with a DENIC member or with DENICdirect.

If you want to change providers, you should inform your current provider about your intention and request creation of an AuthInfo. The current provider will check if the request is issued by an appropriately authorised party (the domain holder or legal representative). The future provider will then submit a provider transfer request together with the AuthInfo to DENIC or, if they are not a DENIC member to the DENIC member with whom they cooperate. This request is then processed by DENIC and the domain is assigned to the new provider.

Sometimes delays occur at this point. They may be due to one of the reasons listed below:

• You have informed your current provider about the intended transfer, but that provider has not yet recorded an AuthInfo.
• You have forgotten to inform your current provider.
• Your provider needs some clarification and cannot get in touch with you.

In all such cases, check whether an AuthInfo has been stored for the domain and whether you have received it. Your provider will certainly help you to solve any problems.

Please be aware of the following: In the past, there have been repeated cases when domain holders tried to change providers by terminating their contract with the first provider, authorising him to delete the domain, and then getting a second provider to register it again, on their behalf. Please note that a domain, following its deletion, can only be retrieved within a 30-day time limit - the so-called Redemption Grace Period (RGP) - by its former holder. Otherwise, as soon as the 30-day Redemption Grace Period ends, the subject domain will be released and will then be available again for registration by any interested party.

If you have any questions about the cost of a provider transfer, please contact your provider. Each provider defines potentially applicable fees themselves.

TRANSIT is an efficient and fast service of DENIC that ensures that you as the domain holder will not lose your domain if it is no longer administered by a provider. Even if there is no provider, your domain will not be deleted immediately and is not available for registration to anybody else while the TRANSIT procedure is running.

For the TRANSIT procedure to be performed, the domain is transferred to direct administration by DENIC and managed by the DENICdirect service. DENIC sends a letter to the domain holder and informs them that their domain has obtained the TRANSIT status and explains the next steps to be taken.

You as the domain holder must then decide within a set period what is going to happen with the affected domain. You have three options:

1. You choose to continue to have the domain administered by DENICdirect by paying the charges for the service.

2. Provider transfer – You choose to keep the domain, i.e. transfer it to a new provider with the help of the provider transfer password (AuthInfo).

3. Domain deletion – You choose to definitely give up your position as holder of the domain by submitting a deletion request.

You can submit a deletion request or generate your individual provider transfer password (AuthInfo) directly via our TRANSIT Service Center. For your access data please refer to the TRANSIT letter.

Please Note!

For the TRANSIT procedure to work properly, the holder data stored in the DENIC database must always be up-to-date because the TRANSIT letter is sent to the address indicated in the database. If the letter cannot be delivered, a termination of the domain contract will be sent without notice to the domain holder to the e-mail address stored in the DENIC database and the domain will be deleted in the end.

The term "Provider Change" is used when administration of a domain is transferred from one provider to another. Since the order to register a .de can only be submitted to DENIC through a member of DENIC or through our DENICdirect service, the provider change (CHPROV) transaction at DENIC refers to the transfer of responsibility for administering the domain from a member or DENICdirect to another member or DENICdirect. The DENIC member in charge or DENICdirect is entered by DENIC in the domain data. This DENIC member handles all communications with DENIC about the domain on behalf of the domain holder. Only this member is authorized to submit any customer orders to DENIC that might lead to modifications in the domain data.

If your domain is placed in TRANSIT, DENIC informs you accordingly by letter to the domain holder's postal address recorded in our database. You as the domain holder must then decide within the set period what is going to happen with the affected domain. You have three options:

1. You choose to continue to have the domain administered by DENICdirect by paying the charges for the service.

2. Provider transfer – You choose to keep the domain, i.e. transfer it to a new provider with the help of the provider transfer password (AuthInfo).

3. Domain deletion – You choose to definitely give up your position as holder of the domain by submitting a deletion request.

You can submit a deletion request or generate your individual provider transfer password (AuthInfo) directly via our TRANSIT Service Center. Simply log in with your personal TRANSIT password we sent to you with our TRANSIT letter. You will be guided through the procedure step by step.

Domains are an addressing technique for identifying and localizing computers (or "hosts") in the Internet. Computers recognize one another solely by means of their IP addresses, which are purely numerical. The IPv4 standard, which is still the dominant one, requires them to be in the form xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, where each xxx stands for a number between 0 and 255. A typical IP address might, for instance, be 10.136.66.12. When one computer wants to communicate with another one via the Internet, it sends it "Internet packets" which are addressed to the recipient's IP address.

It is human nature that we usually find it a lot easier to memorize terms and descriptions than rows of figures. That was the reason the Domain Name System (DNS) was developed and it makes it possible to use words, names and terms instead of digits more or less at will (although a few rules have to be complied with). That now makes it possible for Internet users to access hosts either through their IP address or by entering the domain. The DNS can also be used for calling other services and information.

When a domain is called in the Internet, special computers, known as name servers, assume the task of translating it into the corresponding IP address. Because each domain and each IP address is unique, they can both only be registered once in the world.

The DNS itself has a hierarchical structure. A number of Top Level Domains (TLDs), such as .de or .com, are defined as its topmost layer. Under these TLDs, it is possible to register second-level domains, which are nearly always referred to simply as "domains". DENIC administers those domains that come under the Top Level Domain .de.

You will find a list of potential providers on our website.

It depends on the terms of your contract with your former provider whether or not your domain and services linked to your domain remain accessible. DENIC has no information about this. Please contact your former provider directly for answers to these questions.

In case a termination of your domain contract occurs during the transit procedure and your domain and its technical data are removed from the name servers for the Top Level Domain .de, the domain will no longer be accessible. A termination without notice of the domain contract will be sent to the domain holder to the e-mail address stored in the DENIC database and the domain will be deleted in the end.

You remain the domain holder of a domain that is in TRANSIT because the domain contract with DENIC you have concluded simultaneously with the provider contract remains valid. A domain going through the TRANSIT procedure stays registered in your name and is administered by our service DENICdirect. There is no need to worry that your domain will be deleted simply because you don't have a valid provider contract.

The additional services that you used to get from your former provider (such as webspace for a homepage) will probably no longer be available with the termination of the contract or will only remain available for a short period of time. To find out the details, please contact your former provider.

However, you cannot afford to do nothing. Within the period set in the TRANSIT letter, you must either have moved to a new provider or delete the domain.

The demand for payment included in the letter will only be cancelled within the scope of our accommodation offer, if you carry out one of the aforementioned actions.

Alternatively, you may pay the amount requested in the payment demand and continue to have your domain administered by our service DENICdirect. For making use of this service, you are charged the related fees listed in the DENIC Price List.

Please note: If you do not react within the set period, DENIC will terminate the domain contract for your domain without notice and delete the domain. Therefore, it is essential that you as the domain holder react to the TRANSIT letter in order to avoid an unintended termination of the domain contract.

Please Note!

For the TRANSIT procedure to work properly, the holder data stored in the DENIC database must always be up-to-date because the TRANSIT letter is sent to the address indicated in the database. If the letter cannot be delivered, a termination of the domain contract will be sent without notice to the domain holder to the e-mail address stored in the DENIC database and the domain will be deleted in the end.

The European Commission decided, as a means of encouraging e-business in Europe and to support the creation of a own European Internet identity, to establish the Top Level Domain .eu. The organization EURid, which was set up jointly by the national registries for .be, .se and .it, has been chosen as the .eu registry.

There are two ways of ensuring a domain's connectivity:

The first of these is for the domain to be delegated by DENIC name servers to other name servers. This means that DENIC enters the addresses of at least two name servers in its databases. Any inquiry DENIC receives about this domain is passed on to these name servers. In order to ensure that the name servers concerned are accessible and competent, we perform a check of functionality the first time entries are made for them.

Secondly, there is the alternative of linking up to five services on DENIC's own name servers that have something to do with your domain, such as www.de-example.de or mail.de-example.de, directly with the IP address of the host or a mail server through which this service is handled (such links are known as “NSentries”). In this second case, you do not need to have a name server of your own.

A classical IP address is made up of four bytes (as defined in Internet Protocol Version 4 - “IPv4” for short). Generally, Internet addresses are written in such a way that each byte is represented by a decimal number and the bytes are separated from one another by dots (example: 192.168.4.13).

This system was first introduced in the 1980s. Theoretically, it has a capacity of around 4 000 000 000 IP addresses.

In practice, however, the vast majority of these addresses are not available for use on account of groupings and other mechanisms, so that, as the Internet continued its rapid expansion, it became necessary to think about extending this address scheme. These addresses, which are only 32-bits long are beginning to run out, and new ranges of functions that ought to be integrated are creating the need for additional address space.

For this reason, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) developed a new version of the Internet Protocol (IPv6), and in 1998 it was given the status of a draft standard [RFC2460]. According to this newer model there are no longer just four bytes available for each IP address, but 16. This increases the total number of addresses to 2^128 (aprroimately 3.4 E+38).

Under .de it is not possible to register any domains that contain a sequence of characters that are used to identify an Internationalized Domain Name (IDN). This affects all domains that have a hyphen in both their third and fourth position, such as xn--beispiel.de.

It is possible for individuals or institutions (that have legal capacity) not located in Germany to register .de domains.

For more information please refer to the DENIC Domain Terms and Conditions, §3 (4).

The answer to this question depends on whether your domain is being administered by a DENIC member or by DENICdirect.

In the first case (your domain is being administered by a DENIC member), it is only your provider who is in a position to deal with questions and any other matters concerning your domain. If, despite that, you contact DENIC directly, there is nothing we can do except pass your message on to the DENIC member in charge, so there is no way that you can save time. If it happens that you can no longer contact your provider or if you make no progress with your provider, DENIC is able to give you provisional assistance until you find a new provider.

In the second case (your domain is being administered by DENICdirect), you can contact DENIC directly with any matter that may concern you. As a DENICdirect customer, you should realize that you can help shorten the processing time considerably and reduce the need for clarifying details afterwards by using the special standard forms that DENIC provides for many different types of transaction.

This particular information page has been set up for the holder of the domain concerned, who possibly was not reachable by post, to make him aware that the domain (website) is not accessible and that he/she should contact DENIC as soon as possible.

There are several different possible explanations for this. The first thing you should do is contact your provider or DENICdirect if you are a customer there.

If it has become impossible to contact your provider, if your provider is unable to help you or if a DENIC information page is displayed instead of your website, you should contact our Hotline for assistance.

We provide an online domain query service that you can use to check whether a domain has already been registered or whether it is still available for registration.

If you want to delete your domain you should contact the provider currently in charge of administering it. Make sure that you are as precise as possible, so that your provider really knows what you want and that there is no risk of misunderstanding what your intention is. Vague instructions like "I don't want my domain any more" or "please switch off my domain" do not indicate that you want to delete your domain for ever and that you want DENIC to remove it from its system. It might be that you just want to terminate the service contract with your provider. Many providers supply of a special form for requests for the definitive deletion of domains.

If your domain is being administered by our DENICdirect service, all you need to do is to complete and sign an original of the Deletion Form for DENICdirect Customers and send it to us.

Your domain is not immediately released and available for re-registration by a third party, following deletion. Instead, during the 30-day Redemption Grace Period (RGP), all deleted domains may solely be re-registered on behalf of their last domain holder (RESTORE). but instead initially enter a subsequent 30-day cooling-off phase, the so-called Redemption Grace Period (RGP) during which they can only be re-registered on behalf of the last domain holder or in the name of a third party defined by the domain holder.

RGP cooling-off provisions shall allow former registrants to redeem registration of the subject domain names, by having recourse to the related re-registration service, through a registrar. Only if no redemption is requested, during the 30-day RGP phase, the relevant domain names shall become available for registration by any interested party again.

You receive an invoice from DENIC if you are a customer of our service DENICdirect, this is to say

1. You requested our DENICdirect service to register a domain or to carry out a provider transfer, or

2. Your .de domain is already administered by DENICdirect, or

3. Your Domain went through the TRANSIT procedure and you complied with the demand for payment.

Because your provider stopped administering your domain. This happens if either you yourself or your provider terminates your mutual contractual relationship. Potential reasons are the termination of a website or an e-mail service. However, we do not know any details. If you have any questions on this matter, please contact your former provider.

Your domain will also be placed in TRANSIT if a DISPUTE entry was made on your behalf and you become the new domain holder after the deletion of the domain.

Who wants to register a domain, normally turns to a provider and places a registration order. The provider is the link between the end customer and DENIC, the central registry that administers all .de domains. This means, you enter into two contractual relationships when you register a domain:
First, there is the domain contract your provider concludes with DENIC on your behalf. It is governed by DENIC's Domain Guideline and its Domain Terms and Conditions. Second, there is the provider contract you conclude directly with your provider, which includes the maintenance and servicing of the domain as well as the other domain-related services you have agreed upon. Thus, you have a contractual relationship with DENIC for every domain you hold.
As long as your domain is administered by a provider, your duty to pay domain charges to DENIC is suspended, as laid down in § 4 (2) of the DENIC Domain Terms and Conditions because your provider handles everything on your behalf. If your provider ceases to administer your domain, the contract with DENIC nevertheless stays in force and your duty to pay fees to DENIC is reactivated.

No. DENIC's job is just to administer domains, not IP addresses. The latter function has been entrusted to RIPE NCC in Amsterdam for the European space.

If you need IP addresses for access to the Internet, you will generally be able to get them from your Internet Service Provider (ISP), provided he/she belongs to RIPE's Local Internet Registries(LIRs).

It you don't want to connect up to the Internet, it will presumably be possible for you to work with a so-called "private address space". This concept is described in detail in RFC1918 (Address Allocation for Private Internets).

No. DENIC is only responsible for the registration of domains under the Top Level Domain (TLD) .de (for Germany).

The second-level domain "example.de.vu" has nothing to do with the Top Level Domain .de, but is a domain under the county code TLD .vu (which stands for Vanuatu). DENIC has nothing at all to do with the registration of this domain.

Given that the DISPUTE entry deprives the domain holder of the right to dispose of the domain, it would not be good and also most probably not even admissible to maintain it indefinitely. It is conceivable that the parties might simply give up fighting over the domain and forget about the DISPUTE entry altogether. For that reason, the DISPUTE entry is limited to one year, after which it expires without prior notice. If the DISPUTE entry has been made in your name, it is your duty to inform DENIC as soon as the dispute with the domain holder has been brought to a conclusion, so that DENIC can remove the DISPUTE entry. Once the DISPUTE entry has been removed, the domain holder becomes free to dispose of the domain again by transferring it to someone else and, if the domain is deleted, the claimant will no longer automatically become the new holder. That is why it is particularly important that if a DISPUTE entry has been made in your name, you carefully note the date on which it will lapse, so that you can apply in good time for an extension if appropriate (you should do that no later than about one month before the DISPUTE entry lapses). It is possible to grant such an extension, provided the dispute with the domain holder is still continuing and the holder of the DISPUTE entry can demonstrate this adequately in writing, submitting suitable documentary evidence. In order to grant an extension, DENIC also needs a new copy of the DISPUTE form. Once again, your must complete the form, sign it and send DENIC the original.

No. The DISPUTE entry is intended to be solely a parallel measure to resolving the dispute over a domain. It can thus not be used as a form of guarantee for claims resulting from an agreement between the holder of a DISPUTE entry and the domain holder.

A DISPUTE entry should never be necessary for this purpose anyway. If you fear that the domain holder is not going to respect an agreement entered into with you, you are at liberty not to accept such an agreement to begin with or to take out some other form of protection. One conceivable solution might be for the domain to be transferred to you immediately, but with the agreement that the (existing) holder would be permitted to continue to use it for a transitional period.

It goes without saying that if a DISPUTE entry has been set up for you, you have the right to ask for it to be removed at any time. You must, however, use the <media 748>special form</media> for this purpose, sign it and send it to DENIC.

Once the DISPUTE entry has been removed, the domain is free again for transfer to others. If the domain happens to be deleted, you will cease to be its holder.

At present, DENIC does not charge for setting up DISPUTE entries or for removing them.

The fact that a domain is not being used to address a website does not mean that it is not being used. It is possible to use a domain in conjunction with various services (such as e-mail or file transfer (FTP)) without this being visible on the outside. Moreover, there is no obligation to use a domain to address a website. In no circumstances, then, does the lack of a website give DENIC any occasion whatsoever to terminate the domain contract. DENIC does not even have the means for doing that, and you have no claim at all to take over the domain concerned.

Apart from that, you should also consider that it can always happen that the domain holder may have encountered short-lived technical difficulties, so that a website that really exists is inaccessible for a while. It may also happen that, in looking for a website, you made a typing mistake in the web address. Another possibility may be that the website has been set up only under a sub-domain that an outsider is never going to find by guessing (perhaps under christmas.easter.specimen.de instead of www.specimen.de).

DENIC is the registry for the Top Level Domain .de and is thus responsible solely for domains ending in .de. DENIC is unable to give you any information about domains under other Top Level Domains. However, we can tell you that most other registries responsible for TLDs also provide more information on this matter.

If the domain that concerns you comes under one of the a so-called generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs), such as .com, .net, .org., .info. .biz or .name, you can call ICANN's websites, where you'll find a directory of responsible registries. If certain preconditions are met, you may be able to settle your problem through a so called UDRP (Uniform Dispute Resolution Procedure).

If the domain that concerns you comes under a so-called country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) such as .at (for Austria) or .uk (for the United Kingdom), IANA's website is where you'll find a list of registries.

It can sometimes happen (for instance, if you are involved in litigation) that you need to find out more about a domain.

For reasons of data protection, DENIC can only disclose such additional information to you, if you can first demonstrate that you have a legitimate interest. You must tell DENIC in writing (which includes fax), what additional information you would like to have and for what purpose.

You must support your request with documentary evidence. The more detailed the presentation of your reasons and the more convincing your evidence, the less likely it will be that DENIC will need to contact you for further clarification before taking its decision.

DENIC provides forms for many transactions. That makes the job easier for both you and us. All you have to do is print out the forms and complete them. This way DENIC can be sure it will receive the declarations needed. Clarifications become unnecessary and delays are avoided.

The reason why DENIC asks you to send in the provided forms signed by you or your legal representative is to prevent misunderstandings at some later date.

Naturally, it is DENIC's policy to assist its customers in any way it can when they have problems. However, it cannot give legal advice on individual cases. DENIC is not able to help you if, for instance, you want to know how to react to a written warning or what sort of chances you have of defending your domain in a legal dispute or how you can manage to force a domain holder to delete his/her domain. In such cases, you will have to seek specialist advice elsewhere, such as from a lawyer or a patent lawyer if trademark rights are the subject-matter. In Germany, the local professional chamber of lawyers (Rechtsanwaltskammer) and in some localities the local professional associations of lawyers (Anwaltsvereine) will be able to help you find the correct lawyer to handle your particular problem. Some of the German federal states have set up public legal-advice centres (Rechtsauskunftsstellen) and in some cases there may be a scheme of legal-aid vouchers to help you if you are unable to afford lawyers' fees. If in doubt about this last point, you will be able to get more information from the ministry of justice of the federal state concerned (Landesjustizministerium), or the nearest local court (Amtsgericht) might be able to assist you. In many cases, the best first step is often to try and find out more yourself by using the Internet, where there are many websites that provide legal information. There are also various mailing lists for online law, where you may find others willing to discuss your problem with you.

Whenever you register a domain, it always leads to the creation of a domain contract directly between DENIC and you, the domain holder, even if the registration is handled by a provider. That has to be so, since DENIC, the registry, is the only body that can provide the service "domain" – and actually does this in practice. The contents of the domain contract are determined by DENIC's Domain Terms and Conditions and its Domain Guidelines.

The short answer is perhaps. It will depend on what you have agreed in the contract with your provider. Naturally, DENIC cannot comment on such matters or check provider contracts. If anything is unclear, please contact your provider directly.

The short answer is no. DENIC is at no time in a position to check whether or not the registration or use of a domain violates the rights of others. Moreover, DENIC has no duty to perform routine verifications of this nature. The German Federal Supreme Court said so quite clearly in its judgement of May 2001 in the “ambiente.de” case. Such a verification would, however, be the precondition for DENIC to intervene, since it ought to be clear to everybody that it cannot be permissible to take a domain away from its holder simply because someone else wants it. You certainly wouldn't want that if it was your domain that was at stake!

In these circumstances, you must pursue any disputes you may have on account of possible violations of your rights directly with the domain holder. DENIC will only take action once the dispute has been brought to a clear-cut conclusion, typically through a final judgement handed down by a court of law (ruling on the substance of the case).

If you yourself are the holder of the domain concerned and if it is administered by a provider, you ought to contact your provider immediately and tell him/her the correct data, so that it can be communicated to DENIC. If you are the domain holder and if your domain is being managed by DENICdirect, you should send your corrections to DENIC without delay, making sure you use the form provided for the purpose.

If DENIC has provided you with information on the holder of a specific third-party domain, upon individual request (read more on the Eligibility Criteria for Domain Holder Data Disclosure to Third Parties), and if subsequently you find the disclosed data to be incorrect, you can send your relevant observations to DENIC, provided you also submit evidence of the inaccuracy of the data, or provided it is obvious that the data is wrong. For this purpose, dual evidence must be supplied including, first of all, evidence of the failure to deliver to the domain holder a document at their postal address stored in DENIC’s registration data. Suitable means of verification might either consist of an envelope sent to the domain holder and returned by the postal service bearing an "unknown at this address" or "moved to an unknown address " postmark, or of a notice, issued by a court, that a formal notification of documents could not be delivered to such address. In no way will it be adequate evidence to show that the domain holder simply refuses to accept letters or does not collect (registered) letters from a post office, since in such circumstances, the domain holder might actually exist at the address registered. A returned envelope bearing postmarks saying "delivery refused " or "not collected" will thus not be accepted by DENIC as an adequate evidence of a false address. Secondly, an official notice provided by an appropriate register (i.e. the residents' registration office, in the case of a natural person, or the companies' or trade register, in the case of a legal person) needs to be submitted, stating that no person or company of the relevant name is residing at the given address.

If, after receiving information on the holder of a specific third-party domain from DENIC (read more on the Eligibility Criteria for Domain Holder Data Disclosure to Third Parties), you find that the respective holder’s registered e-mail address does not work, DENIC will follow up a related notification from your end in case you will provide us with appropriate evidence (such as a screenshot of a notice of non-delivery).

To get a DISPUTE entry made in your name you must apply to DENIC. It is mandatory to use the appropriate form in the paper or online version, to sign it and to send the original to DENIC. Please note that you must have submitted a request to DENIC to get information about the holder of the domain on the applicable form before you can apply for a DISPUTE entry to be set. This request must have been made by the applicant within the month preceding the application for a DISPUTE entry. Please attach a written copy of the information received in response to the request to the application for a DISPUTE entry. This is particularly important, since, in signing the application, you confirm that you have already started the process of resolving the dispute with the domain holder or that you intend to do so very soon.

When you send your form to DENIC you must also enclose documentary evidence to show that there are reasonable grounds for claiming that you might have a right to the domain. Suitable documents for showing the existence of a potential right might be: in a case based on a trademark, the certificate granting you that mark, in a case based on a company, an excerpt from the commercial register, in a case based on your name, a copy of your identity card or passport, and in a case based on the name of a commune (i.e. a German local-government body), the commune's official letterhead.

Once you have applied to DENIC for a DISPUTE entry and DENIC has accepted your application, DENIC will send you confirmation with further guidance and an indication as to the period of validity of the DISPUTE entry. DENIC will also inform you if it decides that it cannot grant you a DISPUTE entry, possibly because there is insufficient evidence to support the rights you claim or possibly because there is already a DISPUTE entry on the domain. If you receive no communication from DENIC, you cannot automatically assume that DENIC has set up the DISPUTE entry. After 2-4 weeks, you should contact DENIC again and ask about the status of your application.

In such a case, you instantly become the new holder of the domain. DENIC will also communicate this fact immediately either to you in person or to your representative who originally set the DISPUTE entry for you. DENIC will also inform you as to what further steps you'll need to take.

A valid domain must be comprised solely of the digits 0-9, the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, the hyphens and the other letters listed in the Annex of the DENIC Domain Guidelines. Hyphens are not permitted in first or last place, nor is it possible for both the third and fourth places to be hyphens at the same time (such as xn--.de). No distinction is made between capital and small letters (upper and lower case). The minimum length of a .de domain is one character and the maximum length is 63 characters (cf. RFC1035). If the domain includes letters from the Annex, the maximum length is determined by its ACE version in accordance with RFC3490.

You should read carefully what DENIC's Domain Guidelines say about this.

Yes. It is possible to divide a domain up into sub-domains (a sub-domain of bigcity-university.de would be, for instance, info.bigcity-university.de). However, such sub-domains are not registered by DENIC, but have to be set up by you or your provider. If you want to use the web address http://www.subdomain.de-beispieldomain.de, then DENIC will register the domain de-beispieldomain.de for you. To get the sub-domain subdomain.de-beispieldomain.de set up you should then contact your provider.

DENIC's function is limited to the registration and administration of domains and it is thus not responsible for the contents of websites.

If you happen to find a website whose contents appear illegal or harmful to young people, you should report it to the appropriate law-enforcement agency (such as the police or the public prosecutor's office). Alternatively, you can contact the complaints' unit of the Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle der Multimedia-Diensteanbieter FSM, which was founded in 1997 by several associations in order to prevent the spreading of contents that is illegal or harmful to young people (e.g. incitement of the people, display of violence, so-called hard pornography) via online services. Please note: FSM is not responsible for complaints concerning the following subjects:

• Spam mails (unsolicited advertising e-mails) without pornographic content or content harmful to young persons. Contact: eco e.V.
• Breach of the duties with regard to provider identification of non-members of the FSM. Contact: Zentrale zur Bekämpfung unlauteren Wettbewerbs e.V. (Centre for Combating Unfair Competition) 
• Infringements of data privacy laws. Contact: Responsible State Data Protection Officer 
• Contents of news groups and forums. Contact: ICTF Working Group of eco e.V. (Association of the German Internet Economy)

No. DENIC does not "block" domains in such a way that they are no longer available for registration. That even applies if you believe that you have rights on account of your name or a brand or trademark you own to stop anyone apart from yourself from holding a particular domain. Given the many thousands of millions of people and legal entities throughout the world, nobody can ever say for certain that they are unique and that there is no-else or no organization that might not have the right to register the domain for themselves. That fact that DENIC has no obligation to "block" domains was expressly confirmed in a judgement handed down by the Court of Appeals in Dresden when it found against a leading politician in the German federal state of Saxony who had taken action against DENIC with the aim of forcing it to "block" the registration of a domain called kurt-biedenkopf.de. Despite that, there is an easy way to prevent domains from being registered by others and then used in a way you would not like: you should get in first and register them yourself.

If you are concerned with the contents of websites, first of all you must make sure to clearly understand the fundamental difference between websites and domains.

While domains (under .de) are registered with DENIC, websites are located on servers, and these are not operated by DENIC but by the respective domain holder or their provider. DENIC does not have access to these servers.

From this it follows that DENIC has nothing to do with either the contents or technicalities of websites accessible under .de domains. DENIC cannot determine the contents of websites, nor can it even influence them; they are not even saved on DENIC's own servers.

From this alone, it is already clear that DENIC is not in a position to do anything to prevent the spread of a particular website. And this is why DENIC has no obligations in this respect, as has also already been confirmed explicitly in a court judgement.

When you register a .de domain you conclude a contract, so you must satisfy all the conditions that apply to the conclusion of any sort of legally binding contract. First of all, that means that you be capable of entering into legally binding rights and duties, which any natural individual or legal entity is certainly capable of doing. Secondly you must be capable of conducting business or you must be effectively represented.

It is possible that the registration or use of a domain infringes the rights of others. DENIC makes it quite clear in its Domain Guidelines and Domain Terms and Conditions that it is your duty, before you register a domain, to check whether this domain might infringe any rights. Apart from that, of course, it is in your own interest, to perform such a check, since if, in the final analysis it turns out that your domain does infringe the rights of others, you will, in case of doubt, find you have problems with the holders of those rights, resulting in the loss of the domain.

In order to find out if other people might have conflicting rights, the least you can do, for instance, is the following:

Firstly, you should see if there are any (trade)marks that are identical or similar to your domain that have been registered or applied for with the German Patent and Trademark Office (Deutschen Patent- und Markenamt , DPMA). You can find that out from the information center of the patent office, through a commercial (trade)mark search service or with the assistance of patent attorneys or lawyers.

Secondly, you should check whether companies that are identical or similar to your domain have been entered in the commercial register. This sort of search is already available online, at least partially. Apart from that, you might find that institutions such as a German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (Industrie- und Handelskammer, IHK) would be able to assist you or, again, you could turn to a legal professional.

Thirdly, it is advisable to make use of the other search facilities available, such as Internet search engines, commercial registers or even the Yellow Pages.
If you find out that someone else might also have a right to the domain, you must do what a court of law would do in the event of litigation, namely, weigh up whose right is greater, yours or the other party's. This is exceedingly difficult to do, since even court judgements in domain cases are partly contradictory. Reviewing these judgements, one aspect that usually seems to play an important role is "priority", which means establishing who has been effectively using a particular designation longer. Another important consideration is the public familiarity with the designations and/or their users.

If there is any doubt - especially if you yourself feel apprehensive - you should most certainly obtain professional advice (from a lawyer, for instance, or from a patent lawyer, if trademark rights are an issue). In unclear cases, paying for specialist advice beforehand often costs a lot less than being sued later on by someone whose rights you had overlooked. You might also find it helpful to search for further information yourself (perhaps using the Internet) on matters such as court judgements.

It is possible for the registration or use of a domain to infringe the rights of others. DENIC makes it quite clear in its Domain Guidelines and Domain Terms and Conditions that it is your duty, before you register a domain to check whether this domain might involve infringing rights. Apart from that, of course, it is in your own interest, to perform such a check, since if, in the final analysis it transpires that your domain does infringe the rights of others, you will, in case of doubt, find you have problems with the holders of those rights, resulting in the loss of the domain.

In order to find out if other people might have conflicting rights, the least you can do, for instance, is the following:

Firstly, you should see if there are any (trade)marks that are identical or similar to your domain that have been registered or applied for with the German Patent and Trademark Office (Deutschen Patent- und Markenamt , DPMA). You can find that out from the information centre of the patent office, through a commercial (trade)mark search service or with the assistance of patent attorneys or lawyers.

Secondly, you should check whether companies that are identical or similar to your domain have been entered in the commercial register. This sort of search is already available online (at least partially). Apart from that, you might find that a German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (Industrie- und Handelskammer, IHK) would be able to assist you or, again, you could turn to a legal professional.

Thirdly, it is advisable to make use of the other search facilities available, such as Internet search engines, commercial registers or even the Yellow Pages.

If you find out that someone else might also have a right to the domain, you must also do what a court of law would do in the event of litigation, namely, weigh up whose right is greater, yours or the other party's. This is exceedingly difficult to do, since even court judgements in domain cases are partly contradictory. Reviewing these judgements, one aspect that usually seems to play an important role is "priority", which means establishing who has been effectively using a particular designation longer. Another important consideration is the public familiarity with the designations and/or their users.

If there is any doubt (especially if you yourself feel apprehensive), you should most certainly obtain professional advice (from a lawyer, for instance). In unclear cases, paying for specialist advice beforehand often costs a lot less than being sued later on by someone whose rights you had overlooked. You might also find it helpful to search for further information yourself (perhaps using the Internet) on matters such as court judgements.

When you register a domain, you are required to ensure that the correct and complete data is given for the domain holder including an e-mail-adress. If you fail to do that, such as by indicating an irrelevant address or a false name, you run the risk of losing the domain later on. Wrong data gives DENIC the right to terminate the Domain Contract without giving you any notice beforehand. Be warned that it is a right that DENIC does not hesitate to use.

If your domain has been transferred for administration to another provider without your consent and without you even being informed, you should first of all contact your provider, who will try and sort the matter out for you. It is also advisable to seek the viewpoint of the new provider, since there may simply have been a genuine mistake, given that there is not always a malicious intent underlying such incidents. If you find that you are getting nowhere with these contacts, you can then get in touch with DENIC, who will need a description of all the steps you have already tried.

If you have been assuming that a particular domain was registered for you and that someone else has been registered as the domain holder from the very beginning, the first thing you should do it to check if you have entered into some sort of agreement (possibly with your provider, your advertising agency or even someone else) whereby another person was to be named as domain holder and not you. If that is not the case, you'll have to resolve the matter directly with the other party registered as being the domain holder.

It might well be worthwhile applying to DENIC to have a DISPUTE entry placed on the domain, making it impossible for it to be transferred to anyone else. DENIC cannot do anything for you in this situation, since the person registered has become the domain holder in fact, even if something different was perhaps agreed with you or at least if that had never been your intention.

The first thing you should do is to make sure that there isn't a sound reason for the change in the domain holder. It might be that you have concluded an agreement of transfer or that either you or DENIC has terminated the Domain Contract (perhaps because a court judgement against which there is no appeal has gone against you). If that is not the case, you should next contact your provider and request an explanation and/or a reversal of the change. Sometimes such mistakes happen without any form of malicious intent, and they can be corrected immediately with little fuss and outlay. If your provider is unable to help you, you can then turn to DENIC to investigate the matter. You should send DENIC all the documents that might be helpful in clarifying the situation.

Fundamentally, holding a domain is inheritable, so the heir of the late domain holder replaces the deceased person. Such an heir will need to show evidence of the inheritance to their provider and will then be entered in DENIC's database as the new domain holder. The heir, of course, also has the right to delete the domain or to transfer it to someone else.

The insolvency of a domain holder has no impact on who holds the domain. It may, however, be that the right to dispose of it is transferred to a liquidator.

When a legal entity is dissolved, all its remaining assets are realized, and that includes any domains it may hold. That means that it is the liquidator who decides on what is to happen to these domains. DENIC cannot simply delete them.

If you can submit appropriate documentary evidence of your rights, you can use the form provided by us to request information about the domain holder.

If you come to the conclusion that you have a right to the domain and intent to carry out a dispute about it with the domain holder, DENIC makes available the so-called DISPUTE entry to you.

Fundamentally, two different routes are available to you for arranging to have a .de-domain registered:

One of them is to get your domain registered through a provider who is a DENIC member or who works with a DENIC member. Each provider has their own basis for calculating prices and will usually offer various packages with different ranges of services. For that reason, we cannot give you any indication as to what you will have to pay in a specific case. You should get all the additional information you need from the providers concerned.

The other route is to use our own service, DENICdirect. What we charge is always published in our most recent price list. As a not-for-profit organization, we are bound to offer this service at cost price. The prices you pay at DENICdirect are thus generally higher than those charged by providers, who are often able to offer you considerably lower prices for domain registration as part of standardized, customized packaged services.

Users who have not activated any Javascript may use the "Plain-HTML" version of our domain query:

Go to domain query

Please understand that we do not accept e-mails in the following cases for security reasons:

• The address of the e-mail recipient is invalid. Please check the recipient's address on typing errors. You find valid e-mail addresses of DENIC eG on our contact page.
• The e-mail exceeds the size limit. Please check if your e-mail contains large file attachments and/or if the file attachments can be compressed or split into several e-mails.
• The e-mail is identified as spam. Please check the content of your e-mail and notify your system administrator.
• The e-mail contains a virus. Please check the content of your e-mail and notify your system administrator.

If the DENIC mail server rejects an e-mail for any of the aforementioned reasons, it will communicate this to the mail server of the sender. Whether you as the sender receive a delivery error notification to your inbox depends on the configuration of your mail server. If you are not sure about this, please contact your system administrator.

If a domain with the letter "ß" in its name is resolved correctly, for instance by a web browser, depends on the fact if the web browser that is used supports the new IDN standard that has come into effect in August 2010.

As long as there are some vendors who have not yet updated their browsers and/or users who apply older browser versions which still automatically convert the "ß" into "ss", failures may occur. Such browsers will resolve the entry "straße.de" to the domain "strasse.de".

Before a newly registered ENUM-domain becomes accessible round the world it has to be included in the .9.4.e164.arpa zone. This is usually done the next time the name servers are reloaded following completion of the registration. The same applies to modifications to name server entries for ENUM-domains already registered. The following are the approximate times for the name server reloads:

Daily:
 Reloading the .9.4.e164.arpa zone: between 1:00 and 2:00 CET
 This zone contains all the domain jobs that DENIC confirmed before 1:00 CET.
 
 Reloading the .9.4.e164.arpa zone: between 4:00 and 5:00 CET
 This zone contains all the domain jobs that DENIC confirmed before 4:00 CET.
 
 Reloading the .9.4.e164.arpa zone: between 7:00 and 8:00 CET
 This zone contains all the domain jobs that DENIC confirmed before 7:00 CET.
 
 Reloading the .9.4.e164.arpa zone: between 10:00 and 11:00 CET
 This zone contains all the domain jobs that DENIC confirmed before 10:00 CET.
 
 Reloading the .9.4.e164.arpa zone: between 13:00 and 14:00 CET
 This zone contains all the domain jobs that DENIC confirmed before 13:00 CET.
 
 Reloading the .9.4.e164.arpa zone: between 16:00 and 17:00 CET
 This zone contains all the domain jobs that DENIC confirmed before 16:00 CET.
 
 Reloading the .9.4.e164.arpa zone: between 19:00 and 20:00 CET
 This zone contains all the domain jobs that DENIC confirmed before 19:00 CET.
 
 Reloading the .9.4.e164.arpa zone: between 22:00 and 23:00 CET
 This zone contains all the domain jobs that DENIC confirmed before 22:00 CET.

The following name servers are authoritative for the .9.4.e164.arpa zone zone:

Folgende Nameserver sind für die .9.4.e164.arpa-Zone zuständig (autoritativ):

To become globally accessible, a newly registered domain must be included in the .de zone. Normally, this is done the next time the name servers are updated after the registration has been completed. The same applies to updates of name server records for domains that are already in the zone.

Normally, the update is implemented at every hour, and afterwards the zone will include all changes that have been confirmed by DENIC prior to the update.

The registration procedure for ß-domains is principally identical with the procedure to be applied for any other domain. Parties intending to register an ß-domain must contact a provider, who will then handle the registration for them. They can choose any provider they like.

As regards the procedure itself, the two registration phases (sunrise period and standard operations) principally follow the same pattern. The only special rule for the sunrise period is that exclusively persons who were registered as holders of the corresponding ss-domain at the decisive point in time, i.e. on 26 October 2010, 15:00 CEST are entitled during this period to register the ß-domain corresponding to the ss-domain.

Every domain holder has the possibility to protect their domain by a DNSSEC signature. The signature enables the user of the website to see if the transferred data actually is identical with the originally entered data.

A domain can be signed either by the Internet service provider or by the domain holder themselves. If the provider assumes responsibility for signing the domain – provided the provider supports DNSSEC – the provider also is responsible for generating the keys, signing the zone data, carrying out re-signing before signature validity expires, and for changing the keys at the required intervals.

If the domain holder carries out the signing because they are operating name servers that meet the obligatory requirements, the provider will obtain the public key of the holder in order to pass it on to the responsible registry (for .de domains this is DENIC). If this variant is used, only the domain holder will know the private key.

In addition to the 2048bit Key Signing Key, a 1024bit Zone Signing Key will be used, which will be rolled over every five weeks by the so-called pre-publish procedure. Both keys generate signatures in accordance with the standardized RSA/SHA256 procedure as specified in RFC5702. Validity of the KSK signatures is three weeks, ZSK signatures, in contrast, are valid for one week only. The .de zone is signed with opt-out, using NSEC3 records according to RFC5155.

quot;nsentry" domains - their records being stored and being authoritative directly in the .de zone - will be recorded automatically by DNSSEC and provided with the corresponding signatures generated by DENIC.

If you operate a validating resolver yourself, you are principally able to validate signatures for DNSSEC domains. The details depend on the resolver.

Alternatively, your ISP operates a validating resolver for you. In that case, this resolver will be able to suppress data it has identified as manipulated and will not transfer such data to you at all. It will however not be possible for you to see whether the data originates from a signed or non-signed domain.

Please contact your domain provider directly to find out if they support DNSSEC.

First of all, you need DNSSEC-capable name server software to be installed on your primary and all your secondary name servers. An additional tool for carrying out the signing of your domains would be helpful. You will find practical information about DNSSEC operation in the RFC 4641. When you have completed the preparatory work, you need a provider who supports DNSSEC in order to have your key material stored in DENIC's registration database.

However, there are service companies and software that will do this detail work for you. We have compiled some examples for you at the fourth DNSSEC Testbed Meeting.

For Internet users it is essential that they can rely on the integrity of the information they have called on. It must be guaranteed, for instance, that the contents of a website they see on their screen is identical with the data of the website they wanted to access. To achieve this, the path from the query sent to a website up to the response received must be secured. Domain Name Security Extensions (DNSSEC) render a contribution to this security. They authenticate the origin of data for the Domain Name System (DNS), i.e. they secure the path between the DNS servers and the validating DNS clients. The signature applied reveals if the data is authentic, i.e. if it originates from the authoritative zone. At the same time, securing data integrity protects against DNS data that was manipulated on the way.

However, DNSSEC does not warrant the correctness of the initially stored data of a website nor does it prove that the data is harmless. Neither will DNSSEC recognize if a website you call on, and which you have possibly accessed via a link received in an e-mail, is forged (so-called phishing), nor is it able to protect against domain hijacking or manipulations during the registration process.

If a DENIC member stops to administer a domain and places the domain in TRANSIT, DENIC will remove from the registration database any key material possibly existing for the domain. No DENIC member being responsible for the administration of the domain, there is nobody who can transmit domain data changes, including changes to the keys, to DENIC. Thus, the conditions required for key administration are no longer met. To avoid validation errors, the DS record is deleted and thus flagged as unsigned in the zone.

At present, our DENICdirect service does not provide for a possibility to store key material for domains with name server entries. Domains with "nsentry" records - their records being stored and being authoritative directly in the .de zone - will be recorded automatically by DNSSEC and provided with the corresponding signatures generated by DENIC.

Additional information can be found at https://www.denic.de/en/domains/de-domains/registration/nameserver-and-nsentry-data/.

Not only domains that consist exclusively of ASCII characters can be (ab)used to attract users to forged websites. This is also true for Internationalized Domains (IDNs). At first glance the domains of such websites look like known original domains. But they were registered by third parties exclusively to imitate the original. The goal of such attempted fraud - also called "phishing" - is to spy confidential information such as passwords.

The risk to become a phishing victim is not more severe for IDNs than it is for domains whose names include only ASCII characters. A typical method to fool the user is to replace the original "o" by "0", "1" by "l" or a lower-case "l" by an upper-case "i".

The developers of the IDN standard were well aware of the existence of identical glyphs (character displays) in different scripts (Latin, Cyrillic, Greek etc.) when they created the specification, and the IDN RFCs 3490 and 3491 expressly make reference to them. To facilitate the unique identification of characters and to impede their replacement, DENIC allows exclusively Latin characters to be used. Thus, no sets of characters with identical appearance will be accepted for .de domains, but at best similar ones.

You can take quite a few measures to protect against phishing attempts. Below you will find a list - not claiming to be exhaustive - of the most important ones.

• Always use encrypted connections to pass on sensitive information. Reveal it only to identified, trustworthy partners.
• Be suspicious if e-mails, blogs etc. request you to "urgently" visit pages you do business with (e-banking etc.).
• Rather follow established bookmarks instead of links in e-mails. Avoid using HTML-coded mails.
• Take warning messages about insecure, unknown or altered certificates serious.
• Consult the Federal Agency for Security in Information Technology (BSI) at regular intervals so that you are always up-to-date.

As regards .de domains, IDNs present a useful enrichment and by incorporating language-specific characters they foster .de's function as a country code Top Level Domain. The advantages clearly outnumber potential security risks, which would persist even if without IDNs.

For you as the domain holder, it is only the contact that changes.

If you want to submit any request for your domain in the future, such as update, delete or provider transfer, or if you have questions about a domain registration request or an invoice, your contact for support will be DENIC Services GmbH & Co. KG.

However, this does not have any impact on your contractual relationship with DENIC eG. Your contractual relationship with DENIC eG remains unchanged.

To be able to benefit from DNSSEC you need a validating resolver that is capable to interpret the additional information supplied by DNSSEC.

If you do not operate a validating resolver yourself, you will only benefit if your Internet service provider operates such a resolver for you. When you call a website, for example, the operating system installed on the computer automatically transfers the DNS query to the DNS server defined by the respective Internet service provider. This way, the signed DNS data is verified on the provider's server and manipulations can be identified and forged data be supressed.

Domain Name Security Extensions (DNSSEC) are used to verify data by means of cryptographically secured signatures. These signatures are computed from the data to be protected and are transferred to the client together with the data. Data verification is executed in the client or in the upstream resolver and includes the check against the public keys valid for the respective zone. The easiest solution for these keys, in turn, is to store and call on them in the Domain Name System (DNS). This procedure ensures that the security mechanism cannot be interrupted, since even the key transfer is secured by DNSSEC; only the key required to start the security chain (i.e. the key of the root zone) is permanently stored in the client or incorporated through configuration.

Domain Name Security Extensions (DNSSEC) are extensions of the DNS (Domain Name System) which have the purpose to close security holes in the Internet, such as cache poisoning, DNS redirection and DNS spoofing.

In the conventional DNS an application expects the answer to a DNS query to be intact and to originate from the right source. However, you cannot always be confident about that. In the past, there have been rare cases when non-authentic data were deliberately introduced in DNS caches (the so-called cache poisoning). Already in the nineties this attack was identified as a potential threat and documented later in the RFC 3833. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) reacted to this - initially theoretical - threat and finally published the three RFCs RFC 4033, RFC 4034 and RFC4035 .in March 2005. This RFC trilogy is also known as "DNSSECbis". Later, the so-called NSEC3 (RFC 5155), was added as an important supplement. NSEC3 helps to avoid unwanted listing of the zone content (such as all registered DE domains).

IDN stands for Internationalized Domain Name. This is a standard for domains that can contain characters other than the 36 basic ASCII ones. These include Latin letters with umlauts (ä, ö, ü) and diacritics such as accents (é, à …), the cedilla (ç) or the tilde (ñ) and háček (č).

Up to the year 2003, the characters permitted to be used for domains were limited to certain ASCII characters (a-z, 0-9, -), since only this character set was supported by the standard Internet protocols. Particularly those countries which use other alphabets than the Latin one made considerable efforts to achieve that the permitted character set was extended by characters from other alphabets.

In the year 2003, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) published the so-called IDNA standard by issuing the RFC 3490 ("Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications“) and subsequent RFCs. This standard permits the use of specific umlauts and diacritics. In August 2010, it was updated (cf. RFC 5890 to 5894).

The standard assumes that any non-ASCII character used in a domain name is transcoded into an ASCII character string in accordance with the standard's provisions. For background information and the technical implementation refer to the special FAQ.

To make IDNs backwards compatible to standard Internet protocols, IDNA-compatible applications must work in the background to ensure that IDNs are converted into ASCII character strings before they are used in the Domain Name System (DNS).
To this end, the native form or the U-label (U = Unicode) of an IDN is converted into an ASCII character string by means of the so-called Punycode algorithm. The result is called ACE (=ASCII Compatible Encoding) string or A-label (A = ASCII). This string starts with the ACE prefix "xn--" to indicate that the following domain is an IDN. The string must also indicate which non-ASCII characters are included and what their position is in the U-label. This encoding is executed by means of the so-called Punycode algorithm. Thus, the ASCII string (A-label) of an IDN is composed of the ACE prefix followed by all classical ASCII components of the domain name (which need no transcoding) and the code presenting the non-ASCII characters.
On its website, DENIC makes available a conversion tool with which you can determine the ACE string of any IDN.

The DNS makes no difference between lower-case and upper-case ASCII characters (cf. RFC 4343). However, the IDNA standard does not treat lower-case and upper-case non-ASCII characters as generally equivalent. Moreover, U-labels must be written in Unicode characters in the normalization form C, i.e. no upper-case letters must be used. But the standard provides for optional "normalization" after data has been entered by a user. This process takes account of the specific local settings of the user, such as regional or language options, and maps, for example, upper-case letters to lower-case letters. You will find a description of this normalization process in the RFC 5895. The Unicode Consortium considers the Unicode Technical Standard #46 (http://unicode.org/report/tr46/) an alternative option.

The A-label (i.e. the ASCII-character-encoded form of a domain) usually remains invisible to the user because it is needed only for technical operations. Whenever users enter domains in form of non-ASCII characters, the applications used, such as web browsers or e-mail programs, must "translate" the data.

Most applications support the characters which have been permitted since the Internet standard 2003 became effective. The situation is different for "ß", which can only be used since the IDN standard was revised in August 2010. Up to that date, "ß" was always converted into "ss" (normalized). Since there are many browsers and e-mail programs that will not support the "ß" during a transition period but will continue to convert it into "ss", users may receive unexpected results when querying an ß-domain. For instance, if you enter the domain "straße.de" in your browser, you will either be properly directed to the contents recorded under "straße.de" (if the browser already applies software in accordance with the new standard) or, wrongly, to the contents stored under "strasse.de" (if the browser still uses software in accordance with the old standard).

Even if you have an IDN-enabled browser and e-mail client, you have no guarantee that all other Internet users will be able to call your IDN-based website or to send you an e-mail to your IDN address. There is, however, an emergency solution for such situations: You may use the IDN's ACE string. In our example, this means replacing info@straße.de with the transcoded form of info@xn--zz-strae-oga.de in your entry.

The object of the contract concluded between DENIC and the domain holder is the U-label of the IDN domain. Thus, you must state the domain with its native (not Punycode-encoded) character string, converted to lower-case, in all official documents and forms.

Example: straße.de (NOT xn--strae-oqa.de)

Like all other domains, you can query ß-domains via DENIC's regular information services.

You can use the domain query service (web-whois) on DENIC's website or the command-line-based public-whois for this purpose.

DENIC's whois service on port 43 is fully compliant with RFC3912. In order to provide support for our internationalized database (for instance, with contact data or IDNs), characters not belonging to the ASCII character set are delivered in UTF-8 encoding by default. The main reason for choosing UTF-8 is its backwards compatibility to ASCII. Further, it is the preferred encoding for IETF protocols according to RFC2277. Support for Unicode, UTF-8 and its other transformation formats is widespread in all modern software and operating systems.

It is true that the whois protocol does not principally support internationalization. DENIC implemented some proprietary supplements of this protocol. They enable the existing whois clients to define the character set which is to be used for queries and replies (besides US-ASCII you may use the ISO-8859-1 encoding - also known as Latin 1 - or UTF-8, which is very popular especially in Europe). However, you are not obliged to use these extensions.

You may query IDNs via the domain query service on DENIC's public website. However, if you use this site, you cannot query the A-label.

For other query options, please use the command-line-based public-whois or the RRI commands CHECK and INFO.

If the inquirer submits more requests than permitted during the time interval Z, the RegAcc will be blocked for the time interval Z and the time interval Z + 1. Instead of the normal reply to a request, the inquirer will receive an error message. If the inquirer submits another request during the (blocked) interval Z + 1, it will automatically be blocked for the succeeding time interval Z + 2. The automatic blocking of subsequent time intervals will be continued until the inquirer stops to send new requests during blocked time intervals, i.e. until a blocked time interval elapses without a request being received. Only then, newrequests will be answered in the respective succeeding time interval.

If the limit is exceeded the message „Connection refused; access controll limit exceeded“ will be output.

DENIC reserves the right to vary the permitted number of accesses and the time intervals in dependence of the traffic load. If your personal limit is exceeded you will receive the message "Connection refused; access control limit exceeded".

First scenario  - the acl allows 2 requests per minute

Second scenario - several requests in the first minute/time slot

Third scenario - an additional request in the following minute

DENIC Services GmbH & Co. KG uses the technical infrastructure of DENIC eG. So, customers of the business field DENICdirect will continue to benefit from the competency and technical expertise of DENIC eG.

Like in the past, technical services, such as Internet access, e-mail accounts or web space, will be provided exclusively through Internet service providers.

There are two ways of ensuring a domain's connectivity:

• NSentry:
   Firstly, there is the alternative of linking up to five services on DENIC's own name servers that have something to do with your domain, such as www.de-example.de or mail.de-example.de, directly with the IP address of the host (IN A or IN AAAA) or a mail server (IN MX )through which this service is handled (such links are known as "NSentries"). In this second case, you do not need to have a name server of your own.
• Nameserver:
   The second of these is for the domain to be delegated by DENIC name servers to other name servers. This means that DENIC enters the addresses of at least two name servers in its databases. Any inquiry DENIC receives about this domain is passed on to these name servers. In order to ensure that the name servers concerned are accessible and competent, we perform a check of functionality the first time entries are made for them.

DENIC is responsible for operating the name servers for the Top Level Domain .de.

The authoritative name servers for this zone can be found on

https://www.denic.de/en/service/name-service/

Besides the ASCII characters (the 26 Latin letters, the ten numerals and the hyphen) you may use some other characters for IDNs under .de. These include the German umlauts ä, ö and ü as well as the letter eszett ("ß") and letters with accents and other diacritics. We have compiled a list with the new additional characters valid for IDNs under .de in a table for you.

You might wonder why these particular 93 characters have been chosen and not others. There are several reasons:

• DENIC supports all characters included in the Unicode Latin-1 Supplement and Latin Extended-A blocks which are marked as "PROTOCOL VALID" in the RFC 5892 (The Unicode Code Points and Internationalized Domain Names for Applications).
• DENIC is an open registry free from any form of discrimination. In Germany, there is no meaningful way of drawing a line between the various character sets, since the written German language now includes characters that originated in the languages of the northern, southern and eastern parts of Europe. The sensible and appropriate solution for us therefore seemed to be to adopt two blocks that cover the necessary European character set for those languages that are based on the Latin alphabet, including some additional characters.
• The most frequently used new characters of these character sets can be entered via standard German keyboards without requiring any additional equipment or outlay.

A .de domain must consist of at least one character, but its maximum length must not exceed 63 characters. In the case of IDNs, the question immediately arises as to whether these length constraints refer to the IDN itself (such as straße.de) or its transposition as an ASCII character string (xn--strae-oqa.de).

For technical reasons, the maximum length of 63 characters applies to the ASCII character string, whereas the minimum length of three characters applies to the IDN.

No. These entries are loaded directly into the name server and are not transposed first. The situation for host names for name servers and NS entries remains precisely what it has been so far: the only permitted designations are those that are comprised solely of the basic ASCII character set. It is thus possible to enter the punycode value (such as dns.xn--strae-oqa.de) as the host name in the name-server entries but not the corresponding IDN (such as dns.straße.de).

This arrangement has one big advantage in that hosts with Japanese, Chinese, Cyrillic, etc. names can also act as name servers too and there are no limitations to a particular character set. It is true that such host names cannot be registered under .de, but other registries are free to choose what letters and other characters they want to permit and, of course, their decisions are guided by the needs of the internet users they cater for.

Computers can only work with numbers. So letters of the alphabet and other characters have to be assigned to numbers before computers can process and store them. Before Unicode was developed there used to be hundreds of different coding systems, and not one of them was complete. Even just concentrating on one language (such as German) there was not a single system that really contained all the letters of the alphabet, punctuation marks and technical symbols in common use. The situation was rendered even more unsatisfactory in that it was not possible to use these various coding system side-by-side at the same time, since the various numbers were assigned to different characters. All this changed with the advent of Unicode, which now ensures unique assignments of characters to numbers, no matter what hardware and software is used. Texts that use Unicode can be exchanged throughout the world without problems or loss of information.

The original definition of Unicode and its further development is in the hands of the Unicode-Consortium, a non-profit body, whose purpose is to normalize and standardize the representation of text data in the computer field. The consortium's members include many companies and institutions from the IT sector.

Punycode is a rule that describes how Unicode characters are assigned uniquely to ASCII character strings. You will find a technical definition of this rule in RFC3492 (Punycode: A Bootstring Encoding of Unicode for Internationalized Domain Names in Applications).

In an extremely simplified form, the following is what happens in this transposition:

The previously normalized IDN has the prefix "xn--" placed in front of it. All non-ASCII characters are taken out. The punycode algorithm determines what these characters were and where they stood and adds this coded information to the end of the string that is left. To give an example: "zääz.de" is encoded as "xn--zz-viaa.de".

A general distinction is made between generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs), such as .com, or .info, and country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs), such as .de.

You will find information about the gTLDs on the website of the international organization ICANN.

The website of IANA gives you an overview of the more than 240 ccTLDs that exist today. Here, you also find a list of the names and addresses of the registries in charge of each ccTLD.

Many registries make information about domains and domain holders publicly available through a so-called whois search. For many of the gTLDs, you can use the whois search offered by Internic. If this is not possible, please contact the particular registry in charge of the TLD you are interested in to get further information.

DENIC is a cooperative and its full name is “DENIC eG”. It is the registry for the domains below the Top Level Domain .de, i.e. it administers all second level domains that end in .de. Additionally, DENIC is the registry for all ENUM-domains which cover the German telephone number space.

The domain administration is an operation requiring the most sophisticated technology. Its most essential components are the provision of an automatic electronic registration system and the operation of the domain database and the name-server service for the .de zone and the German ENUM zone. DENIC's database thus contains information about which domains have already been registered, who the domain holder is and, by no means least important, on which computer the services associated with the domain are to be found.

No, because DENIC is only in charge of .de domains. If you want to register a domain under a generic Top Level Domain (e. g. .com, .net, .org, .info etc.), you can do so through any of the registrars accredited with ICANN.

 If you want to register a domain under any ccTLD (country code Top Level Domain) other than .de, you should ask your provider if he/she handles such domains or you should contact the competent registrydirectly.