Internet users registering a domain will do so in future in accordance with terms and conditions that show more clearly than in the past who the parties to the contract are. That has been decided by the general assembly of the DENIC cooperative at its most recent meeting in Frankfurt am Main.

Anyone applying for a domain in future will, for instance, be informed quite explicitly that, through the domain registriation, they are entering into a contractual agreement with DENIC. In explaining the decision, DENIC's CEO, Sabine Dolderer, stated "that was already the case in the past, but it was not always presented so clearly. With the amended wording, we are making it even clearer what the various roles are. Customers get their domains from DENIC and they get all their other Internet services from their providers".

In the vast majority of cases, domain holders are not going to notice any change. Sabine Dolderer continued: "in the course of the next few weeks, the first thing we are going to do is update our agreements with the providers. You can imagine that we are going to need some time to implement this decision. We have thus made allowance for transitional periods running into months; if it emerges that amended documents need to be sent to the users in certain cases, then it is the providers who will contact their customers directly. All the appropriate information will, of course, be available on DENIC's homepage at http://www.denic.de."

DENIC is hoping that the new rules will bring greater transparency and thus give domain holders enhanced legal certainty.