Update on the .place extension

Since the 18th of May, it is temporarily no longer possible to place new orders for .place domains. Registry Donuts closed the extension for new registrations while working on a brand new proposition. They have now revealed the first information about the .place domain update.

.place will be rebranded as a very specific, location-based extension in close cooperation with provider GeoNetwork. Through DNS-based technologies, .place domains will host geospatial definitions that can be used for current and future technology.

How does it work?

An example may make this update easier to understand. Assume Openprovider registers openprovider-office.place. We would use GeoNetwork to define (based on GPS coordinates) the precise location and boundaries of the Openprovider office. For example, we can then feed our robot vacuum cleaner with “openprovider-office.place”. The robot vacuum cleaner now knows its place and won’t bump the outer wall.

Also, if in this hypothetical scenario the weather forecast would show two weeks of high temperatures, we might buy a drone with a fan. We would then also feed the drone with “openprovider-office.place”. The drone now spreads cool air only in our office and does not fly out of the window.

This examples shows the power of the .place domain. Each area only requires one definition, instead of re-entering all data in each location-aware device.

On the other hand, it is no longer possible to assign your own nameservers to a .place domain. The registry explicitly no longer aims at websites or e-mail addresses under a .place domain. From that point of view, .place has similarities with .tel.

Get your new .place domain

We are working with Donuts and GeoNetwork to integrate the new service in our systems. If you want to register and use your .place domains before it’s active in our system, please contact us!

The update will not apply to .place domains registered before the 18th of May 2018. You can keep using these as “normal” domain names, linking to a website or used for e-mail.