Nominet have taken over the management of the PRIV.NO domain after the Ventelo group signalled they no longer wished to manage it.

PRIV.NO domains are for private individuals in Norway. It appears registrations of PRIV.NO domains are currently on hold, with a group being formed to look at policies. Some of the issues to be considered in this policy review are:

• the legal consequences of having private individuals as domain name holders; among other things in connection with personal data protection, consumer rights, etc.
• whether private individuals require domain names within priv.no or directly within .no
• mechanism for the transition to the new policy within each of the two alternative options.

It is thought the final policy will not be ready until the very end of 2008 at the earliest. After the completion of the policy development process comes the technical implementation by the registry that is going to operate the service.

Until the process is completed, Norid will manage priv.no so that the registrations that exist today can be maintained.

For more information, see the NORID website at www.norid.no/regelverk/priv.en.html