.ME

On 21 May 2006 a majority of Montenegrins supported independence in a national referendum. On 3 June 2006, Montenegro declared its independence from Serbia and Montenegro. As a constituent part of that country, the Republic of Montenegro had unofficially been using the cg.yu SLD whilst the .cs TLD had been assigned to Serbia and Montenegro in 2003 following the breakup of Yugoslavia, but remained unused by that country. The .cg (Crna Gora) TLD could not be assigned to Montenegro on the basis of the new country’s Montenegrin name, because it had been the TLD of the Republic of the Congo since 1997. This left the newly independent state without an obvious TLD based on its Montenegrin name.

On 23 May 2006, Ilan Shavit, a Tel Aviv lawyer active in the field of internet domains, made a written application to ICANN requesting that the .me TLD be assigned to Montenegro, stating that “The country is known worldwide as Montenegro and calls itself by that name internationally. The only appropriate free TLD commencing with .m was .me (.mo, .mn, .mt, .mg and .mr were all taken). It would appear to be fair and logical for this TLD to be granted to Montenegro – which would be a wonderful gift to the country by ICANN on the occasion of its historical declaration of independence, and allow it a clean start”. In September 2007, this position was accepted and ICANN resolved that .me be delegated to the Government of Montenegro, with the former .yu domain to be operated temporarily by the .rs domain registry, Serbian National Register of Internet Domain Names, until its eventual abolition on or before 30 September 2009.

On 11 September 2007, delegation of root name servers was approved by IANA, establishing .me. The .me domain became active on 24 September 2007 and a “Public Invitation for selection of the Agent for domain registration under the national Internet domain of Montenegro” was posted on 14 November. doMEn d.o.o. was selected as the new registry operator.

doMEn, d.o.o. is a Montenegro based joint venture (doing business as .ME Registry) whose partners are Afilias Limited, GoDaddy.com, Inc., and ME-net d.o.o.

6 May 2008 – .me Registry – General Sunrise began for all eligible Trademark holders anywhere in the world.

On 16 July 2008, registration was made available for all .me domains at various registrars.