Glossario

Organisation or commercial entity that has entered into an agreement with EURid to sell .eu,.eю or .ευ domain names. Find an accredited registrar!

Policy established for .eu, .eю .ευ domain name disputes to protect intellectual property rights and combat speculative and abusive registrations of domain names. For more information click here.

The American Standard Code for Information Interchange

The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment and other devices that use text. Please read more here.

The result after an IDN has been converted into a form that is understood by the Domain Name System (DNS). Please read more about IDNs and ACE string here!

It is the code that is needed when a domain is transferred to a new registrar and/or new domain holder. Please read more about transfer procedures and authorisation codes here.

Challenge-response test used to ensure that the response is generated by a human, not a computer. The process usually involves one computer (a server) asking a user to complete a simple test which the computer is able to generate and grade. Because other computers are unable to solve the CAPTCHA, any user entering a correct solution is presumed to be human. A common type of CAPTCHA requires that the user type letters or digits from a distorted image that appears on the screen. The term "CAPTCHA" is an acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.

Principle of computer security by which the trustworthiness of one layer of the DNS is guaranteed by the layer above. With DNSSEC, this principle is used to obtain the public key of a sender (like eurid.eu) in a secure way. The parent of a domain (such as .eu, .ею and .ευ) offers signed, and hence verifiable, data about that public key. In order to verify that information, the public key must be obtained in a secure way from its parent, the root zone.

CENTR is the European country code TLD (ccTLD) organisation of which EURid, as the registry, is a member. Read more about EURid's and CENTR's activities here!

It is a body within ICANN created for and by ccTLD managers.

An Internet top-level domain is generally used by or reserved for a country (a sovereign state or a dependent territory). For example .be for Belgium, also .eu, .ею and .ευ are ccTLD`s.

Independent arbitration body attached to the Czech Chamber of Commerce with its seat in Prague.

Characters that directly follow the last dot in a URL, such as .eu, .ею and .ευ are called domain extensions. In the case of the URL http://www.eurid.eu, the extension of the domain name eurid is .eu.

Unique, case-insensitive name consisting of a string made up of alphanumeric characters and dashes separated by dots that the Domain Name System maps to IP addresses and other information. Domain names are used instead of IP addresses as they are easier to remember.

For example, you might not remember that the IP address for the EURid website is 172.19.112.2, but you will probably remember that you can reach the website at http://www.eurid.eu. In this web address eurid.eu is the domain name.

Refers to a natural person, or legal entity who has registered a domain name via a registrar. Domain name holders are also called registrants.

Distributed database of information, most commonly known because it translates domain names into IP addresses. The DNS protocol is very robust, always relying on redundancy and retransmission.

Extension of the DNS that adds verifiable signatures to DNS replies. Recipients of a signed reply can validate its authenticity by following the chain of trust. This protects the DNS from cache poisoning attacks.

Most top-level domains with three or more characters are referred to as generic TLDs, or "gTLDs".

Set of domain names that are all homoglyphs of each other. Please read more here.

Characters (or words) from different scripts that are visually similar, but have different Unicode-numbers. Read more about homoglyphs here.

Domain name that contains characters from non-ASCII character sets. These include characters with accents, cedillas and ogoneks e.g. from German, Romanian, Cyrillic or Greek alphabets. Read more about IDNs.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is an internationally organized, non-profit corporation that has responsibility for Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management at the root level. Read more about EURid and ICANN.

United Nations forum for multi-stakeholder dialogue on public policy related to Internet governance issues, such as the Internet's sustainability, robustness, security, stability and development. Read more about EURid's engagement with IGF.

Unique numeric identifier used to specify hosts and networks. IP addresses are part of a global, standardised scheme for identifying machines that are connected to the Internet. For example, the IP address for the machine that hosts http://www.eurid.eu is 172.19.112.2.

Successor of the present Internet Protocol, that addresses several of IPv4's shortcomings such as speed, ease of configuration, mobility and number of available addresses. During transition, which is expected to last several years, both protocols will exist in parallel. EURid offers resolution of domain names via IPv6 addresses.

Independent, international non-profit organisation founded in 1992 to provide leadership in Internet-related standards, education and policy around the world.

Service on a computer that implements the DNS protocol.

Characters not found in the ASCII character set, including Unicode characters. Read about ASCII's here.

On-site Contact refers to a natural or a legal entity, unrelated to the registrar (such as their reseller), managing the technical matters relating to the domain name and/or the services linked to the domain name (such as website, email, etc.) on behalf of the registrant.

Request that can be filed with EURid to obtain the contact details of a registrant not found on the WHOIS database.

Relates to DNSSEC and is the private part of a key pair. The private key is used by the sender to encrypt the DNS reply. To verify the reply's authenticity, the recipient calculates the reply's hash, decrypts the encrypted hash using the public key and compares the two. If they match, the recipient can be sure that the reply has come from the expected source and has not been changed.

Relating to DNSSEC. Public part of a key pair. The public key is used by the recipient to decrypt data in a DNS reply. The public key itself is available via DNS by asking for the DNSKEY resource record.

Person or organisation that holds the right to use the domain name they registered through a registrar. Registrants are also called domain-name holders.

Organisation or commercial entity that has been accredited by EURid to manage the registration, renewal and transfer of .eu, .ею and .ευ domain names and offer such services to its clients.

Body composed of registrars that advises EURid on business related issues and on matters important to our registrar community.

Web-based interface that allows accredited registrars to manage their domain name portfolios. Access to this interface is password protected.

Process whereby a registrar enters a domain name into the appropriate zone file at the request of a registrant (providing the domain name does not already exist) and the registrant is afforded the right to use the domain name for the duration of the registration period.

Period of time for which a domain name registration is valid, the minimum registration period is one year. Read more about expiry dates here.

System that allows registrars to make changes to the database in real time. Sometimes also called the .eu registration platform or registrar extranet.

Manager of a top-level domain e.g. EURid is the registry of the .eu, .ею and .ευ top-level domains. Each registry manages a database of all the domain names registered under its top-level domains and transmits this information on the Internet so that the domain names can be found by users around the world via the web and email.

Basic data element in the Domain Name System. Each record has a type (A, MX, etc.), an expiration time limit, a class, and some type-specific data. Resource records of the same type define a resource record set.

The root zone is the common part of the DNS shared by all top-level domains. It is the highest point in the DNS hierarchy and starting point for all queries.

Means all (EU) legislation, regulations and rules applicable to domain names under the .eu and its variants in other scripts published on eurid.eu.

Collection of letters and other written signs used to represent textual information in one or more writing systems. For example, the Latin script supports English, French, German and Italian.

Period of time, between 7 December 2005 and 6 April 2006, during which EURid accepted applications for .eu domain names on a limited basis. Only those individuals and organisations holding some type of legal protection for a name within a Member State of the European Union were eligible to apply for domain names during that time.

Extension that appears after the last dot of a URL or Internet address, for example, .eu, .ею, .ευ, .com, .net, etc. In the case of the URL http://www.eurid.eu, the top-level domain is .eu.

Character coding system designed to support the worldwide interchange, processing, and display of the written texts of the diverse languages and technical disciplines of the modern world. .eu, .ею and .ευ supports the Unicode characters used in the alphabets of the official EU languages.

Master public database that keeps information on all registered domain names, including information about each domain name's registrant. Take a look here!

Legally binding document that details how the personal data of registrants will be treated and which data will be displayed in the WHOIS database. It also describes what actions have been taken to prevent data misuse and the conditions under which personal data may be disclosed. Read more here!

The WIPO Center is the global leader in the provision of domain name dispute resolution services.

Text file that contains all the data needed for a domain name. In a zone file the data is organised in the form of resource.