ie-domain Domain

The domain extension .ie is the country-specific top-level domain (ccTLD) from Ireland.

Ireland is a Western European island state consisting of almost five sixths of the island of the same name and numerous smaller islands. The capital of Ireland is Dublin, the country has been part of the European Union since 1973.

In 2018, Ireland was the second richest country in Europe and even the fifth richest in the world in terms of gross domestic product per capita.

The ccTLD .ie was introduced on 27.01.1988. It is administered by the company IE Domain Registry (IEDR).

The top-level domain is one of the ccTLDs with the highest growth rate, despite the strictest allocation criteria. While 75,000 domains were registered in April 2007, by October 2011 there were already more than 170,000. The most recent growth rate was eight percent per year, which generated revenues of 2.6 million Euros for the registry.

It is important to note that the domains are only assigned at the second level and may be between 3 and 63 characters long. Only alphanumeric numbers are allowed, special punycode characters are supported.

There are strict criteria for the registration of this top-level domain.
Interested companies must, for example, provide an extract from the commercial register. For domains whose names are similar to their own products, they must provide evidence of their advertising and actual sales.

A branch office in the country is not mandatory, the owners of a trademark registered in the European Union can easily create it as a .ie domain.

If the branch is not directly in Ireland, the business relationship with the country must be proven.
According to the award criteria, until 2007 it was not possible to register a domain that was in the name of a natural person.

The .ie domain was voted 3rd most secure top-level domain by security specialist McAfee in December 2009. In 2012, however, a hacker was able to manipulate the resolution of popular addresses, such as google.ie, because he managed to gain access to the domain name server.

There have been cases where the domains have been rejected. The best known example is the domain porn.ie.
A large part of the population is Roman Catholic, so the allocation of the domain was rejected in autumn 2006, as it was contrary to public morals.