.me

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country:	International, Montenegro
Manager:	Government of Montenegro
Registry Provider:	.Me Registry
Date Implemented:	2007
Type:	ccTLD
Key People
Predrag Lesic, CEO/Executive Director

.me is a country code top level domain name (ccTLD) delegated to the Government of Montenegro under ISO-3166 standard and it is also used as a personal domain name extension. At present there are more than 530,000 registered .me domain names within 200 countries worldwide.Predrag Lesic serves as CEO/Executive Director of .Me Registry, responsible in managing the operations of the .me ccTLD.

Background

On September 11, 2007, ICANN Board approved the delegation of the .me ccTLD to Montenegro and the operations at the time was handled by the Center of Information Systems (CIS) of the University of Montenegro.

On November 2007, the government of Montenegro issued a Request for Proposal in search for a registry operator capable of transforming the ,me ccTLD as a world-class domain space. doMEn, d.o.o. doing business as .Me Registry with its partners Afilias Limited, GoDaddy.com, Inc., and ME-net won the contract. The new .me domain name space was re-launched and the Sunrise registration was held on July 17, 2008.

By August 5, 2008, .me domain names reached 100,000 registrations.Majority of the registrants (71%) are located in the United States. There are more than 100 registrars offering the .me domain space. The List of .me accredited registrars can be found here

Policies

.Me Registry allows entities can only register domain names using the Latin alphabet letters from a-z including hyphens and digits, however domain names should not start or end with hyphens. Registrants are required to provide accurate and complete contact information including the administrative, technical and billing information. They can register a domain name for one year (minimum) up to 10 years and maybe renewed automatically when the expiration date is reached. A registrant can also transfer their domain names from one registrar to another.

Entities anywhere around the world are allowed to register second level domain name ( example: domainname.me) without restrictions while third-level domain names (example:domainname.net.me) are restricted to entities located in Montenegro and Me-net is the only registrar allowed to register the domain names. Third-level .me domain names include:

• net.me
• org.me
• co.me.
• its.me
• priv.me

The University of Montenegro Center of Information Systems (CIS) handles the registration for edu.me, ac.me and gov.me sub-domains.Registrars do not allow domain name abuse and immediately investigates complaints and to take appropriate actions. .Me Registry uses a Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) for domain name disputes and will be filed with the the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Management Team

Management Team of .Me Registry is composed of the following individuals:

• Predrag Lesic, CEO
• Natasa Djukanovic, Sales Director
• Zelkjo DRaskovic, CTO
• Sanja Lazovic, Chief Accounting Assistant
• Vuksan Rajkovic, Business Development

Partnership with SEDO

On January 24, 2012, .Me Registry and Sedo, a domain market place monetization provider announced their partnership in auctioning the premium .me domain names which starts on February 2, 2012. Some of the premium domain names for auction include:

• Hotel.Me
• Singles.Me
• Boats.Me
• Yoga.Me
• Creditcard.Me
• Gift.Me
• Movies.Me
• Webhosting.Me
• Friends.Me

ICANN Participation

.Me registry announced the re-launching of .me ccTLD during the ICANN 32 meeting in Paris and its sales director Natasa Djukanovic has been actively promoting the domain name space within the ICANN community during the succeeding ICANN meetings Cairo, Mexico, Sydney, Seoul, Cartagena, Belgium and San Francisco respectively. The ccTLD was also promoted during the DOMAINfest and TRAFFIC conferences.

Market Share Among Tech Start-ups

Based on a survey regarding the market share of TLD's among start-up companies founded in 2005 up to 2011, 1.7% out of 1000 start-ups are using the TLD in 2011. Its market share among start-ups during the previous years were 0.20% (2008), 0.80% (2009) and 0.50% (2010) respectively. It looks like, .me is surpassing .co with 1.0% market share in 2011 despite .Co Internet's strong marketing camapign targeting start-up companies. The survey was conducted by a doctoral student named Thomas Park.