.at
 | You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (March 2013) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
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| Introduced | 20 January 1988 |
|---|---|
| TLD type | Country code top-level domain |
| Status | Active |
| Registry | nic.at |
| Sponsor | nic.at |
| Intended use | Entities connected with Austria |
| Actual use | Very popular in Austria, also used for English-language domain hacks |
| Registered domains | 1,468,838 (December 2022)[1] |
| Registration restrictions | None, except for restricted subdomains .gv.at and .ac.at |
| Structure | Registrations are directly at second level, or at third level beneath several second-level labels |
| Documents | Terms and conditions (English) |
| Dispute policies | none since October 2008[2] |
| DNSSEC | yes |
| Registry website | www |
.at is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Austria. It is administered by nic.at.
Second-level domains
[edit]The .at top-level domain has a number of second-level domains:
- .ac.at (reserved for academic institutions, especially universities)
- .gv.at (reserved for the government as well as federal and state authorities)
- .co.at (intended for commercially-oriented companies)
- .or.at (intended for all kinds of organizations)
- .priv.at (intended for private Austrian individuals)
However, it is also possible to register directly at the top level. Given the number of English words that end with -at, this presents the possibility for many domain hacks.
Known domain hacks
[edit]Many Austrian domain names were registered for English words that end with "at". Domain hacks treating "at" as a word in its own right (such as arrive.at) are widespread. As of today, there are very few such domain names left available on the domain prime market as the result of domain name speculation. Most of them can be bought on the domain secondary market. Only a few of these domain names are actually used. Some known examples of the Austrian domain hacks are:
- donteat.at, a popular Foursquare service
- many.at, link bundler[citation needed]
- hailst.at, official website of Mississippi State Bulldogs athletics
Properties
[edit]An .at-Domain can be between one and 63 characters long. Registrations of internationalized domain names are accepted.[3] In 2007, it was made possible to register domain names containing only numbers. The .at-Domain started using DNSSEC in 2011 in order to guarantee the authenticity and integrity of the Domain Name System's data.
Before August 2016, it was only possible to register .at-Domains with three or more (two for co.at, ac.at, gv.at, or.at) characters.[4]
References
[edit]- ^ ".at Statistiken". nic.at. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
- ^ "Legal issues". Archived from the original on 2011-08-17. Retrieved 2011-08-08.
- ^ "Charset & Converter". Archived from the original on 2006-05-10. Retrieved 2011-08-08.
- ^ "nic.at: Introduction of short domains". Archived from the original on 2016-07-16. Retrieved 2016-05-10.