Freenom
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| Formerly | OpenTLD B.V. |
|---|---|
| Industry | |
| Predecessor | Freedom Registry |
| Founder | Joost Zuurbier |
| Headquarters | , |
| Products | Freenom World Freenom GoSite |
| Members | 11–50 |
| Subsidiaries | Dot TK, Dot ML |
| Website | http://www.freenom.com |
Freenom (previously known as Freedom Registry) is a company based in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, which is engaged in the provision of services for domain name registration and DNS resolution.
Freenom is part of the OpenTLD B.V. group that is globally active in the field of registering country code top-level domains (ccTLD), and through its subsidiarys Dot TK and Dot ML, the company provides domain registration, domain monetization and support services.
The registry of Internet .tk domain names, registered in the country of Tokelau in the Pacific Ocean, is currently the largest ccTLD in the world, and the largest TLD after .com.[1][2]
Freenom is launched by the founder and current CEO Joost Zuurbier in December 2012.
History
In 2001, Zuurbier proposed the .tk project to the elders of the Tokelau Islands, who, considering the advantage of getting their first ICT structure and an innovative open ccTLD on the Internet, welcomed the proposal.
But only in 2006, after five years from the proposal, ICANN became convinced of the merits of the project, supporting the already favorable position of the elders of the islands. In fact, ICANN initially was skeptical about the legitimacy of the deal and wanted to deepen it, also by meeting the inhabitants, to ensure they were not deceived about their rights as ccTLD. ICANN was very determined to require servers and other infrastructures to be hosted exclusively in Tokelau. They later gave up when they realized how difficult it would be to install servers in the islands and allowed them to install the servers in Amsterdam, at Freenom's headquarters.[3]
In September 2007, Dot TK signed a permanent agreement with Tokelau which annually increases more than 10% of the island's GDP.[4] Then they decided to remove advertisements from all .tk domains, making them free.
They launched in 2011 one of the first DNS AnyCast cloud structures in the world.
In 2012 they established partnerships with the governments of Mali, Gabon and the Central African Republic.
In November 2013 Architelos mentions .tk as the largest ccTLD operator in the world with more than 20 million domains.
The company was funded in December 2013 by a group of investors led by Kima Ventures (KIMA), with a fund of 3 million dollars.[5]
In October 2014 they established agreements with Equatorial Guinea.[6]
In November 2016 they launched Freenom World, an anonymous and open DNS resolver.
Products
Freenom products are:
- Registering of Internet Top-level domains
- DNS resolution service
- Monetization of domains
- Support and consultation services
See also
References
- ^ "Freenom – ICANNWiki". icannwiki.org. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
- ^ Curtis, Sophie (11 March 2016). "If domain names ruled the world, America wouldn't be a superpower". mirror. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
- ^ Whittle, Sally (25 October 2007). "Putting an island in touch with the world". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
- ^ "BBC NEWS | Technology | Net gains for tiny Pacific nation". news.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
- ^ "Freenom Closes $3M in Series A Funding". VentureBeat. 16 December 2013. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
- ^ Freenom. "Freenom Relaunches The National Top Level Domain of Equatorial Guinea". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2 August 2017.