.at is the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

country code Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes ( geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The term ...

top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...

(

ccTLD A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code. All ASCII ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all t ...

) for

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. It is administered by nic.at.

Second-level domains

The .at top-level domain has a number of

second-level domain In the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy, a second-level domain (SLD or 2LD) is a domain that is directly below a top-level domain (TLD). For example, in , is the second-level domain of the TLD. Second-level domains commonly refer to the organ ...

s: * .ac.at (reserved for academic institutions, especially universities) * .gv.at (reserved for the government as well as federal and state authorities) * .co.at (intended for commercially-oriented companies) * .or.at (intended for all kinds of organizations) * .priv.at (intended for private Austrian individuals) However, it is also possible to register directly at the top level. Given the number of English words that end with -at, this presents the possibility for many

domain hack A domain hack is a domain name that suggests a word, phrase, or name when concatenating two or more adjacent levels of that domain. For example, and , using the fictitious country-code domains ''.ds'' and ''.le'', suggest the words ''birds'' an ...

Known domain hacks

Many Austrian

domain name A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. A ...

s were registered for English words that end with "at". Domain hacks treating "at" as a word in its own right (such as ''arrive.at'') are widespread. As of today, there are very few such

s left available on the domain prime market as the result of

domain name speculation Domain name speculation, popular as domaining in professional jargon, is the practice of identifying and registering or acquiring generic Internet domain names as an investment with the intent of selling them later for a profit. The main targets ...

. Most of them can be bought on the domain secondary market. Only a few of these

domain names A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...

are actually used. Some known examples of the Austrian

s are: * donteat.at, a popular Foursquare service * many.at, link bundler * hailst.at, official website of Mississippi State Bulldogs athletics

Properties

An .at-Domain can be between one and 63 characters long. Registrations of

internationalized domain name An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed in software applications, in whole or in part, in non-latin script or alphabet, such as Arabic, Bengali, Chinese ( Mandarin, simp ...

s are accepted. In 2007, it was made possible to register domain names containing only numbers. The .at-Domain started using

DNSSEC The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) are a suite of extension specifications by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for securing data exchanged in the Domain Name System (DNS) in Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The protocol ...

in 2011 in order to guarantee the authenticity and integrity of the

Domain Name System The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned ...

's data. Before August 2016, it was only possible to register .at-Domains with three or more (two for co.at, ac.at, gv.at, or.at) characters.

References

External links

NIC.AT Website

Private Individuals

.at Registrars Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:At Internet in Austria Telecommunications in Austria Country code top-level domains Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries members Computer-related introductions in 1988 1988 establishments in Austria de:Nic.at he:סיומת אינטרנט#טבלת סיומות המדינות sv:Toppdomän#A