“Exceeding the first million of Polish domains coincides with the fifth anniversary of launching a fully automated system of domain registration and introduction by NASK of the Partnership Programme which allows the partner companies to individually register domains in the national register .pl. Since the moment of introducing the Partnership System, we have been observing an increase of the number of registered domains and a creation of a market with active registrars”, says Andrzej Bartosiewicz.

The Partnership System allows domain subscribers to choose from among several dozen service providers. Currently, there are 95 entities cooperating with NASK, including 37 foreign companies.

Within the last five years proportions in the area of handling customers’ registered domains completely changed. Currently, 95 percent of the names registered in the .pl domain are handled by Partners, while less than only 5 percent of the domains are handled by NASK. In case of the ongoing domain registration the Partners’ share is close to 100 percent.

“In recent years NASK also launched additional services, such as “Domain Name Tasting” (in the Polish language version known as “Domain Tasting”) or “Wait List Service” (known as “Domain Option” in the Polish version). DNT consists in registration of a domain for the period of fourteen days at the price of 1.00 Polish zloty, which allows the subscriber to test the traffic generated by that domain. WLS, or “Option”, allows the subscriber to obtain the preferential right to register a domain, provided that the said domain will not be prolonged or deleted (e.g. because of the lack of payments). Both services support an active trade in domains”, says Andrzej Bartosiewicz.

As a registry for the national domain .pl, NASK actively participates in the works of the Council of European Top Level Domain Registries, an organisation uniting most of European registries and many non-European ones. “This makes it possible to follow trends in the development of the global domain market and be up-to-date both from the technical and organisational points of view. Since the very beginning of CENTR existence the Polish registry plays an important role in the international environment linked with the registration and maintenance of internet domains. This is confirmed by a renewed election of Andrzej Bartosiewicz to the post of the CENTR Chairman during the last General Meeting of this association in March 2008”, says NASK director Maciej Kozłowski.

Approach to the value of the internet domain has changed in recent years. Not so long ago, the domain was treated quite “technically” as an address necessary for a correct operation of business servers or electronic mail. Currently, the domain becomes an interest having a real market value due to its growing importance both in traditional and developing internet business. It can be “bought”, “sold”, “rented” or treated as a profitable investment instead of putting money in more traditional forms of investment, such as shares or real estates.

The internet domain, which becomes a sort of a virtual real estate, has a lot in common with real localisations: a good address is an ideal place to develop a profitable business, a number of attractive domains is limited, therefore, there are worse and better addresses. Experts are of the opinion that the observed changes, along with low investment costs, will foster the growth of domains’ values. Those forecasts are corroborated by the development of the global secondary market of domains where both individuals and enterprises specialised in the registration of internet names aimed exclusively at generating traffic operate. New services appear concerning, for example, assessment of the value, auctions, bookings or domain recovery.

New trends can also be seen within the .pl domain. According to Andrzej Bartosiewicz, “currently, the only aim of some 8 percent of the domain names registered in the national registry.pl is to generate traffic (so called “domain monetization”). If calculated together with domains registered as a sort of investments (deposits), this ratio amounts to 10 percent.