SIDN and Norid Consider a .BV Domain Name for the Dutch Market

SIDN, the company behind .NL extension, and Norid, the registry responsible or .NO, are discussing the possibility of working together to make the .BE domain available for the Dutch business community.

You can read the announcement after the jump :

“SIDN, the company behind .nl, and Norid, the Norwegian registry responsible for .no are discussing the possibility of working together to make the .bv top-level domain available to the Dutch market. As well as being the registry for Norway’s country-code domain .no, Norid controls the .bv and .sj domains. Although those domains are linked to Norwegian territories – .bv to Bouvet Island and .sj to Svalbard and Jan Mayen – Norid often receives enquiries from Dutch companies wanting to register .bv domain names. The reason being that, in Dutch, the letters ‘BV’ have a meaning like ‘Ltd’ or ‘Inc’ in English. In recent years, the .nl domain has expanded to become one of the largest, most secure and best respected country-code domains in the world. Norid therefore sees SIDN as the ideal partner for exploring the potential added value of .bv for the Dutch business community.

Opportunities for the Dutch business community
Roelof Meijer, SIDN’s CEO said, “We believe that the availability of .bv domain names would open up new opportunities for the Dutch business community. One of the ideas we’ve discussed with Norid is using .bv for a platform on which companies could publish validated corporate information. Business partners looking for a company’s details wouldn’t then have to visit a variety of on-line information sources, but could go straight to the company’s .bv page.”

Research into the added value of .bv
In order to verify that such applications would yield added value for Dutch companies, for SIDN and for other stakeholders, we will soon be undertaking a market study. The research will of course be organised in close consultation with all our stakeholders, in particular the .nl registrars. Once we have the findings, we will talk to Norid about whether .bv should actually be made available to Dutch companies. If we do ultimately decide to offer .bv registry services, the domain will of course be just as secure, reliable and innovative as the .nl domain. “SIDN is a highly professional registry that shares our values, and we are looking forward to further discussions with them on whether it is possible to use .bv in an innovative manner that adds value for both the Dutch and Norwegian internet communities” said Hilde Thunem, Norid’s Managing Director.”