.FR domains now available for everyone in the EU: As of today, registrations in the French top-level domain are available to all individuals and organizations located within any EU member state. A local contact in France is no longer required. EPAG now offers .fr registrations in real-time.

eco Awards 2011: On 30 June, the best companies of the Internet industry were awarded in the framework of the eco Gala in Cologne. EPAG is among the top three registrars, a category which has been evaluated for the first time this year. Eco, the association of the German Internet economy has awarded the coveted awards for the eleventh time this year. Prizes were awarded to companies in the Internet industry that provide innovative products and services. A jury of experts from industry, academia and journalism chose the winners. We are excited about the award and thank eco for the successful event.

.nokia: Also NOKIA seems to be interested in an own TLD. Already in 2000 the Finish trademark has applied for .mobi, but is now only one of several sponsors of the mobile TLD. (Source: www.domain-recht.de)

.travel: Domains with two characters that were so far blocked, will be made available in the next months. This decision was made in the beginning of August.

.ee domains now available with trustee service: Since July 5, 2010, less rigid rules for domain registrations in the EU member state of Estland are in effect. Now both private persons as well as companies may register domains under .ee in unlimited numbers. Also persons and companies outside of Estland are eligible to be registrant of .ee domains, but still need a local admin contact. EPAG can provide this contact if needed and offers the registration of .ee domains with trustee service.

.co Landrush extended until July 16, 2010: Due to popular demand, the .co registry has extended the Landrush phase to now close on Friday July 16th at 4pm (UTC). On July 20, 2010, the launch plan will enter its final phase General Availability with first-come-first-served registrations.

Intermediate certificates necessary for SSL123 and thawte Webserver: All thawte SSL123 and thawte webserver certificates that are issued from this week onwards now require an intermediate certificate. The reason for this is a change of the certification path at thawte and the rearrangement to 2048 bit root certificates. The intermediate certificate has to be included on the web server on which the newly appointed SSL certificate is used. Here you may find information how you can include the intermediate certificate on your server. Existing certificates are not affected by the change.

CNNIC sends important confirmation e-mails to .cn domain owners: The .cn registry CNNIC informed us short notice, that from today they will send out e-mails to all domain owners with the request to confirm the correctness of the owner details, especially the e-mail address. If no confirmation is made, a deletion of a domain may be the result. The subject line of this e-mail is "Domain Name Information Confirmation", and the e-mail is sent from reminder@cnnic.cn. This e-mail goes directly to the e-mail address of the domain owner. All domains regardless of the date of registration are affected. The e-mail contains a confirmation link. The domain owner has 15 days to follow the link and therewith confirm the contact details. If the confirmation is committed, CNNIC will take appropriate action - this may result in the deactivation or deletion of the domain.

.arab: An organization comprised of 22 members from Arab States, called the Arab League, has asked the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for support with the introduction of the new TLD .arab.

Korean IDN TLD: From early 2011, the South Korean Korea Communications Commission (KCC) wants to offer internationalized domain names in characters of the alphabet used in all of Korea. More precise details of the introduction are not yet known.

.tel IDN: Starting today, registration of IDN domain names is now also available under .tel. Names with characters from a total of 16 character sets are available for registration.

.vegas: There are currently two applicants for the new top-level domain .vegas. Apart from Dot Vegas also Vegas.com endeavors to operate the extension. Currently it is expected that an auction will decide, who may run the extension in the future.

.xxx: The proposed Top-Level Domain .xxx does currently not find enough support in the adult entertainment industry. The "Free Speech Coalition" (FSC), an industry trade association has voted for a .xxx re-examination.

.pro: In order to activate a .pro domain, every domain owner has to pass some additional data of his license to the registry. A link to the entry of these data will be redelivered in the status message of our system if it is required. Additionally the .pro registry will send this link directly to the domain owner.

.xxx: The decision about the introduction of the erotic TLD .xxx has been postponed again. On the website of ICANN you may find a document about the controversial introduction of this TLD. Until May 10, 2010, the document is open for public comment.

.yu: Since March 30, 2010 the Yugoslavian TLD finally is consigned to history. Following the political breakup of Yugoslavia the TLD does not exist any longer. For all former owners of .yu domains a registration under the TLD of Montenegro .me or the Serbian TLD .rs is recommended.

.na: Now you may also register domains under the TLD of Namibia at EPAG. The price for .na domains is 3,499 € excl. VAT. .com.na domains may be registered for 549 € excl. VAT.

.nl: Since March 17, it is possible to register .nl domains in realtime. Forms are no longer necessary for any .nl transaction. Transfers of .nl domains are now done using an AuthCode. This code is set by the registry and does not expire. For outbound transfers, the losing registrar can no longer decline a transfer - if a valid authcode has been submitted, a transfer will be automatically completed after 5 days.

.music: There is currently a petition regarding the coming TLD from the music industry. Everyone can support this campaign by filling in their name and e-mail address at music.us. More than 2 Million people already support the TLD .music, whose target groups are artists, musicians, bands, the music industry, its organisations as well as its event venues.

.pro: Special professional groups such as doctors, tax consultants or lawyers have got the opportunity now to apply for a .pro domain with one, two or three characters by handing in a business plan as well as by paying an application fee of 250 $.

.no: EPAG now offers a trustee service for .no domains. The service costs 299 € excl. VAT per year and is only valid for a certain restricted number of domains.

10,000th .eu domain at EPAG: Just in schedule for christmas, the 10,000th .eu domain has been registered with EPAG at December 23, 2009. The lucky winner has already received its prize, a voucher worth 500 € for Mydays (www.mydays.de). Congratulations!

.nl: SIDN, the Dutch registry, has postponed implementation of their new real-time registration system, which had been planned for the February 17, 2010, for one month. The new anticipated launch date is now March 17, 2010.

.edu: VeriSign plans to sign the .edu zone with DNSSEC starting in June 2010. For the fourth quarter of 2010, signing the .net zone is scheduled to follow. If this will work well, VeriSign will conclude introduction of DNSSEC with signing the .com zone in the first quarter of 2011. DENIC, the .de registry, has also launched a DNSSEC testbed for signing the .de zone since the beginning of 2010.

.cn: The registration of .cn domains is still suspended. CNNIC, the Chinese registry, has not announced any news as to when a reopening of registrations for foreign registrants can be expected.