In The Netherlands there is a ridiculous thing called a 'Personal Domain Name'. Some facts:
- only a person can own a personal domain name (So NOT a company)
- normal domain names can not be just numbers (So 12345.nl is not allowed)
- personal domain names are in the form of name.number.nl (So for example: john.123.nl)
A little while ago there was a lawsuit against Bram Heerink, by the Dutch government, about a domain name he owned: www.112.nl. Apparently he had managed years ago to register a personal domain name with the name 'www' on the number 112.nl. The state wanted the domain name for their national campaigns to promote the national alarm number (which is 112 in the EU). After a lot of blah and hassle they won the case, and the name got transfered to a person connected to the Dutch government:
Registrant:
ORA000934-NEXTG
Mr F.J. Oranje
Koningin Julianaplein 10
2595AA 'S-GRAVENHAGE
Netherlands
It cost the state a lot of money to do that lawsuit, even though it was totally ridiculous.
Now I can't suppress a smile when I read this news item:
Zoals bekend en nog besproken tijdens de deelnemersbijeenkomst van 15 juni 2007 zal SIDN de 500 nog geregistreerde persoonsdomeinnamen dit jaar uitfaseren.
Translated: As discussed during the members meeting on the 15th of june 2007, the SIDN (the company that governs the .nl TLD) will phase out all the 500 personal domain names that still exist.
Everybody owning one, will get 25 euro compensation.
"I'm sorry mister government, but we do away with all personal (and thus numerical) domain names. Sorry it cost you 20.000 euro for a bullshit lawsuit a couple of months ago. Here's 25 euros for some ice cream."
Now this is what I call IT humor!
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