Trademark owners and Qatar’s government entities will soon be able to take advantage of the new Qatar-specific Internet domain names being made available by the Qatar Domains Registry (QDR).
QDR, which is managed by ictQATAR, will begin offering the Qatar domain names in both Arabic and Latin-scripts to these specific groups on July 18 as part of the ‘sunrise’ period.
The sunrise period allows for local, regional and international trademark holders to protect their brands, and also ensures that Qatar government bodies can secure their necessary domain names before they are made available to the general public.
Ten registrars have been accredited by QDR to offer the domain names. These registrars are Qtel, W3infotech, IP Mirror, Ascio, MarkMonitor, Marcaria.com, EPAG Domainservices, Safenames, CPS-Datensysteme, and Mesh Digital.
Trademark holders and government entities will be able to register directly through approved registrars. By early September 2011, after the sunrise period, the Qatar domain names will be publicly available.
“The sunrise period is an important step in our liberalisation of the domain naming regime in Qatar. Arabic domains open up the Internet to new users and create a great business opportunity for businesses to differentiate themselves. It will be important for organisations and individuals to have strong registrars to support them as they choose their uniquely Qatar domain names. We expect more registrars to become accredited and encourage local businesses to consider accreditation so they can offer valuable domain registering as part of their business,” said Saleh al-Kuwari, chief technical manager at ictQATAR.