Last year the .ie ccTLD opened a consultation process around “liberalisation”. As anyone who has tried to register a .ie domain name would know, compared to registering a .com or .eu the amount of paperwork and general bureaucracy associated with a .ie domain name has always been excessive.
The consultation showed that there was strong support from the public to change the rules and policies and make it a lot simpler to get a .ie domain name.
You’ll still need to provide evidence of a clear and documented nexus with Ireland, but most of the other rules will be removed in March of this year.
This is a positive move.
However if you have a “claim” or other “rights” that you want to protect in the .ie ccTLD you really should consider getting those domain(s) now. Once the policy change comes into force it’ll be “first come, first served”, though you can still follow the dispute process in more egregious cases. However filing an IEDRP is a lot more expensive than registering a domain name.
Here’s a short animated video that underlines the key changes:
Disclosure: my company Blacknight is a .ie domain name registrar.
