Fundació puntCAT

A short history of .cat

The idea of a domain name to represent us first emerged around 1995, when the first internauts began to create websites and news groups and to understand the domain system. Why not have a domain name to represent us online?

The option that seemed easiest at first, obtaining a ccTLD (a two-letter domain name) was hindered by international law at the time. It wasn't until ICANN (the institution administering website names) opened the possibility of domains for cultural communities that it became feasible to request a generic domain (gTLD) such as .com or .net and the domain chosen to represent Catalan speakers on the internet was .cat.

The .cat option more than met all the requirements of the different ICANN selection commitees, as well as receiving the highest number of points awarded to all of the different candidate domains from an independent group of Japanese experts.

On the night of the 15th/16th September 2005, ICANN definitively approved .cat's candidature and a few days later the contract was signed between the internet regulatory body and the puntCAT Foundation, which manages the .cat register. During the following months the technical configuration began enabling .cat to be put on the root (the domain's main server) on the December 21st 2005 and with it, the first .cat domains in the register (www, domini, nic, ...). Incidentally, the first .cat domain that ever existed was tan.cat (meaning "closed" in Catalan), a little joke on the part of the .cat engineers. The technical processes and agreements with the registrars were completed during the Christmas period and January.

Finally on Tuesday February 13th 2006, the .cat Sunrise (the special start-up phase that all domains go through) began and with that, the first requests for registration began to come in. A few weeks later, on April 23rd 2006, the Sunrise period ended and anyone could register .cat domains.

Since then, the registration process for .cat has been simplified so that now anyone can have a .cat domain in a matter of seconds. Registration prices have also been reduced by more than 50% and new services and benefits have been made available.

Today, .cat is a domain with strong growth that is internationally recognised and prestigious in terms of both the quantity and the value of the content provided by its websites and for the extremely low level of conflict within the .cat space. The puntCAT Foundation participates in different international web forums and has a determining role in our projection around the world.

Now anyone can register a .cat domain and use it in a matter of seconds.

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