.yu was the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) that was assigned to SFR Yugoslavia in 1989 and was mainly used by Serbia and Montenegro and its two successor states. After Montenegro and Serbia acquired separate .me and .rs domains in 2007, a transition period started, and the .yu domain finally expired in 2010.[1]
| Introduced | 15 June 1989 |
|---|---|
| Removed | 30 March 2010 |
| TLD type | Country code top-level domain |
| Status | Discontinued |
| Registry | nic.yu (Yugoslav Internet Domain Registry) |
| Sponsor | YUNET Association |
| Intended use | Entities connected with the former  Yugoslavia and  Serbia and Montenegro |
| Registration restrictions | Registration not available since 10 March 2008. |
| Structure | Registrations were made at third level beneath established subdomains |
| Documents | Policy statement |
| Registry website | nic.yu (formerly) |
History
editThe .yu ccTLD was assigned originally to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, during the government project for the development of scientific-technological information (SNTIJ). The official registrants were the University of Maribor and the Jožef Stefan Institute, which were located in Slovenia. Computer scientist Borka Jerman Blažič registered the domain in 1989, which allowed Yugoslavia to have an Internet connection.[2]
When the SFR Yugoslavia dissolved, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia registered their own ccTLDs (.si, .hr, .ba and .mk). Serbia and Montenegro formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, but was under international sanctions at the time because of ongoing Yugoslav wars. Between 1992 and 1994, the domain was run by ARNES who only used it for email. ARNES rejected all requests by Serbian institutions for new domains, severely limiting the country’s access to the internet.[3] The domain became a succession matter when the Slovenians refused to relinquish the domain name to the University of Belgrade in Serbia, which had requested they do so.
Following the personal intervention of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority founder Jon Postel,[3] in 1994 IANA finally decreed that the domain should pass to FR Yugoslavia. After that, the domain was managed by the YUNET Association, an organization based in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Belgrade.
The FR Yugoslavia renamed itself Serbia and Montenegro in February 2003. The code YU was replaced by CS in July 2003 following the official name change, and the ccTLD .cs was reserved for Serbia and Montenegro after the name change. However, .cs was never actually used, and .yu remained one of the few ccTLDs that did not correspond to a current ISO 3166-1 two-letter code.
The state union of Serbia and Montenegro was dissolved in June 2006, and in September 2006, ISO accordingly proposed the replacement the codes RS for Serbia and ME for Montenegro. On 26 September 2006 the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency agreed on the change of ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code CS to RS. The new domains .rs for Serbia and .me for Montenegro became active shortly thereafter.
In September 2007 ICANN resolved that the .yu domain would be operated temporarily under the Serbian National Register of Internet Domain Names (RNIDS), operators of the new .rs domain registry.[4] A two-year transition period started, and the .yu domain was scheduled to expire on 30 September 2009.[5] However, the Serbian registrar requested an extension[6] and ICANN decided to extend the transition deadline another six months. Finally, the Serbian registrar declared the end of the .yu domain at 12:00 CEST on 30 March 2010.[1][7] All .yu websites that failed to transition were deleted, including historical ones.[8] RNIDS estimated there to have been around four thousand active websites using the .yu domain at the time of its deprecation.[9]
Former use of .yu domains
editAll of the domains directly under .yu were reserved for legal entities only. Top level domain was reserved for federal institutions and official governmental institutions, as well as Internet service providers. The Serbian Orthodox Church was also allowed to use .yu domain.
The second-level domains under .yu included:
- Academic organizations, such as universities, used the .ac.yu domain. For example, the School of Electrical Engineering (ETF) at the University of Belgrade (BG) had the etf.bg.ac.yu domain.
- Educational institutions, such as primary and high schools, used the .edu.yu domain.
- Independent organizations used the .org.yu domain.
- Corporations used the .co.yu domain.
- The Government used the .gov.yu domain.
Montenegrin websites often used the .cg.yu subdomain which was given for free to customers of a Montenegrin ISP which controlled the domain, which made it a popular option for those who opted not to purchase a domain for their website.
In the media
editThe domain is part of the story in the 2013 mini-documentary film From Yu to Me.[2][10]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b "The Serbian National Register of Internet Domain Names Home Page". RNIDS. Archived from the original on 1 February 2010. Retrieved 30 March 2010.
- ^ a b Pirnat, Andrej J. (30 May 2016). "To je znanstvenica, ki je v Slovenijo pripeljala internet #intervju" [This is the scientist who brought the internet to Slovenia #interview]. Siol.net (in Slovenian). Archived from the original on 8 July 2017. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
- ^ a b "Yugoslavia's Digital Twin". The Dial. Retrieved 10 October 2024.
- ^ "Preliminary Report for Special Meeting of the ICANN Board of Directors". ICANN. 11 September 2007. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
- ^ "Preliminary Report of Special Board Meeting". ICANN. 30 September 2009. Archived from the original on 15 October 2009. Retrieved 13 October 2009.
- ^ "End in sight for Yugoslav domains". BBC News. 29 September 2009. Archived from the original on 29 September 2009. Retrieved 29 September 2009.
- ^ Ben-David, Anat (1 August 2016). "What does the Web remember of its deleted past? An archival reconstruction of the former Yugoslav top-level domain". New Media & Society. 18 (7): 1103–1119. doi:10.1177/1461444816643790. ISSN 1461-4448. S2CID 2906701.
- ^ O'Toole, Frani (20 February 2019). "The New Museum Hits "Save" on Net Art". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
- ^ "YU domain becomes history". www.rnids.rs. 30 March 2010. Retrieved 23 January 2023.
- ^ "From yu to me". Tanya Leighton. Retrieved 2 May 2019.
External links
edit- IANA .yu whois information
- "Srbija i Crna Gora – koje će biti ime domena? Internet domen Srbije: RS, SS, SP, SQ, SW ili SX" Archived 21 November 2019 at the Wayback Machine, Elitesecurity, 5 February 2003. (in Serbian)