What is a TLD registry?
TLD is an abbreviation for top-level domain. A TLD is the last part of an Internet domain name; that is, the letters which follow the final dot of any domain name. For example, in www.website.com, the top-level domain (TLD) is .com. There are three principle categories of TLDs: generic, country code, and geo. • generic TLDs are used, in theory, by a particular class of organizations (for example, .com for commercial organizations). Most gTLDs are available for use worldwide, but .mil and .gov are reserved for use by the U.S. government. There are two subclasses of TLDs, sponsored and unsponsored. Most domain names are issued using unsponsored TLDs, .com, .biz, .net, .org, .info, .name and .pro. Examples of sponsored TLDs are .aero, .coop and .museum. • country code TLDs are used by geographic territories, typically nation-states, with some were issued to dependent territories. Some well known cc-TLDs are .us, .ru., and .uk.
A TLD registry comprises the organization and the technical resources required to create, manage and track the domain names ending in that TLD. The registry applies the registration policy, records the domain names and key contact information associated with each domain. It updates the TLD servers so that the active domain names can be resolved through them to end user websites.
