".SK" domain was stolen from Slovakia Unknown reason

The top level domain (TLD) given to each country such as ".JP" and ".UK" is an important resource which is not an exaggeration to say in the modern society where the Internet has developed to social infrastructure, is. However, in Slovakia, the country code TLD seems to have been taken from the government by one private company in a fraudulent manner.

The story of stolen Slovak national Top Level Domain .SK
https://medium.com/@Oskar456/stolen-sk-domain-717e070f6735

After the Czech Republic and Slovakia separated and independence from Czechoslovakia in 1993, ".CS" of the country code TLD which was assigned to Czechoslovakia has been abolished, ".CZ" to the Czech Republic, ".CZ" to the Slovak Republic ". SK "will be allocated. "CZ" will be managed by CZ.NIC of the Czech domain management organization, CZ.NIC is very much in the development of the Internet infrastructure in the Czech Republic, such as developing open source software while increasing security and reliability Turris Omnia of the Czech Republic says that he is proud of the realities of TLD management in his country.

However, regarding management of the ".SK" domain of the neighboring country Slovakia that used to share the country, Omnia says, "It is unfortunate." The reason is that as a result of the "fraud" that occurred in 1999, one private enterprise monopolizes the ".SK" of the country-specific TLD and is improperly profitable with abusive use of authority .

When ".SK" is assigned to Slovakia, the government of Slovakia has entrusted SANET, which operates an academic network, with the administrative task of ".SK" of country code TLD. And SANET decided to entrust the management and operation of the domain to the group called "EUnet Slovakia", a non-profit organization based in the Department of Mathematics and Physics at Comenius University in Slovakia. The registry of ICANN was in the form as follows.


In 1995, a group that was at Comenius University which operated ".SK" changed the company "Softwarehouse, sro" which already existed to "EUnet Slovakia.sro" . ".sro" is a code appended to companies in the form of limited liability. In other words, I tailored the name of a company unrelated to EUnet Slovakia as if it were related to EUnet Slovakia. In addition, EUnet Slovakia.sro succeeded in sharing postal codes with EUnet Slovakia by borrowing a small rental room in the premises of Comenius University and moving the company's location.

And in 1999, this group deleted "Comnetius University (Comenius University)" from ICANN ".SK" management organization and added "sro" behind "EUnet Slovakia" I requested a correction on the registered name that I want you to do. ICANN accepted the offer as a minor change due to address change. This was the moment when a private company took ".SK" from a non-profit organization "EUnet Slovakia".

EUnet Slovakia.sro will be sold to the company "Euroweb International USA" located in the United States on August 19, 1999, only nine days after the change of data managed by ICANN, ".SK" The scrappage plan of the company was completed.

When ".SK" departs from government control, in 2002 domain registration fee was set and gratuitous use was stopped, and this situation continued unchanged until 2017.


When it became public that the ".SK" was deprived of under the control of the Slovak government in 2004, the Ministry of Telecommunications of the government agencies sent letters to ICANN and asked for a breakthrough. ICANN proposed to set up an association to manage domains in Slovakia by dispatching staff to negotiate. And as negotiations started by the government · Euroweb International USA · Association from 2 February 2004, Euroweb International USA succumbed to pressure and responded to the sale of EUnet Slovakia.sro to the government of Slovakia, ".SK" The company SK-NIC for management will be established.

However, according to Omnia, recently, SK-NIC said there is a movement to sell ".SK" to a British company called CentralNic, Ltd. CentralNic, Ltd has established the country-specific TLD ".LA" assigned to Laos as "the first city TLD in the world" to Los Angeles City as TLD for Latin America at a price much higher than the original price ".LA It is said that they are concerned that ".SK" will be deprived from the hands of Slovak citizens because it is a company selling related domains.

Slovakia seems to have appealed to the government to bring back ".SK" to the people, but since the consultant of the Slovak government consultant Patrik Krauspe is the former SK-NIC's managing director As you can see, the strong relationship between the Slovak government and SK-NIC suggests that the future is uncertain.