Ber­lin, 09.03.2007 – dot­BER­LIN, the initia­ti­ve for a new Top Level Domain .ber­lin, wel­co­mes the reso­lu­ti­on „Advance­ment of the adress space in the Inter­net” (prin­ted paper no. 16/4564; cour­te­sy trans­la­ti­on) which the fac­tions of Social Demo­crats (SPD) and the Chris­ti­an Demo­crats (CDU/CSU) in the Ger­man Par­lia­ment sub­mit­ted to the ple­na­ry this week. In it, the fede­ral govern­ment is cal­led upon to sup­port new deve­lo­p­ments in the Inter­net name space. In par­ti­cu­lar the intro­duc­tion of new Top Level Domains, espe­ci­al­ly for urban and regio­nal com­mu­ni­ties such as „bay­ern”, „nrw” or „ber­lin”, are being endor­sed, said Jörg Tauss, who is spo­kes­man for media poli­cy of the SPD fac­tion, this Tues­day in Berlin.

Dirk Kri­schenow­ski, foun­der and CEO of dot­BER­LIN, comm­ents: „We wel­co­me that the Bun­des­tag shares our view of the poten­ti­als of the idea to have local Top Level Domains. Ber­lin could be the first city world­wi­de that has its own TLD zone and we expect a lot of posi­ti­ve effects from that.” dot­BER­LIN is curr­ent­ly pre­pa­ring the intro­duc­tion of a Top Level Domain .ber­lin. Cities plan­ning for city domains include N.Y.C.

The .ber­lin pro­ject is also sup­port­ed by local poli­ti­ci­ans. Lars Oberg, Mem­ber of the ruling SPD fac­tion in the local Ber­lin Par­lia­ment: „I think that .ber­lin is an exci­ting pro­ject that may bring important incen­ti­ves for the Ber­lin com­mu­ni­ty”. This view is shared by Chris­ti­an Goi­ny, who is spo­kes­man for media poli­cy of the CDU fac­tion: „I app­re­cia­te this idea which deser­ves to be supported”.

Accor­ding to Tauss, fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment of the inter­net name space is of par­ti­cu­lar importance in the medi­um and long term. Increased visi­bi­li­ty and per­cep­ti­bi­li­ty on the inter­net is likely to bring huge oppor­tu­ni­ties for Ger­ma­ny as a who­le as well as for its coun­ties, cities, com­mu­ni­ties and regions.

Prof. Micha­el Rotert, pre­si­dent of eco, the asso­cia­ti­on of the Ger­man inter­net enter­pri­ses, and mem­ber of the advi­so­ry coun­cil of dot­BER­LIN, adds: „Ger­ma­ny has always play­ed an important role in the deve­lo­p­ment of the inter­net. Today we have very high pene­tra­ti­on rates of inter­net usa­ge and the hig­hest num­ber of regis­tered second level domains world­wi­de. Against this back­ground, local iden­ti­fi­ca­tors are a logi­cal advancement.”

The reso­lu­ti­on also requests that the Ger­man govern­ment shall cam­paign for fur­ther fle­xi­bi­li­sa­ti­on of the cha­rac­ter set for the Domain Name Sys­tem through so cal­led Inter­na­tio­na­li­zed Domain Names in Top Level Domains (for ins­tance „köln”).

The reso­lu­ti­on is prompt­ed by the forth­co­ming con­fe­rence of ICANN (Inter­net Cor­po­ra­ti­on for Assi­gned Names and Num­bers), sche­du­led from March 26 to March 30 in Lis­bon, Por­tu­gal. The intro­duc­tion of new Top Level Domains and the asso­cia­ted pro­ces­ses and sche­du­les are on the meeting’s agen­da. The Ger­man govern­ment is fur­ther being reques­ted to sup­port the estab­lished sys­tem for the admi­nis­tra­ti­on of the domain name sys­tem. Addi­tio­nal­ly, impro­ve­ments in the sys­tem for sto­rage and publi­ca­ti­on of „Whois”-data are being cal­led upon.