Registration Agreement .gm

GENERAL
The policy of the NIC is intended to encourage activity that empowers and enhances Internet services in the country.

Terms used:
Registrant: the entity registering the domain, often called “domain owner”, is identified by name (or role), company/organisation name and email address)
Registrar: the company facilitating registration for the Registrant, responsible for everyday maintenance and often technical issues
Registry: the .GM ccTLD administration actually running the TLD operation
Technical contact: if the Registrar is not managing the technical domain management, another person/role must be indicated as responsible for this. 
 

HOW TO REGISTER
The only valid way currently of registering domains under .GM is through a registrar (a list of registrars is found here).

2ND AND 3RD LEVEL DOMAINS IN THE GAMBIA
The Gambia NIC registers 2nd level domains under the GM domain. There is no provision for 3rd level domain registration and so most Internet addresses under the GM ccTLD has the format http//server.domain.gm.

Domain owners with their own domain name servers can of course create subdomains under their registered domain(s) using their own name servers.

Note that a number of domins, including but not limited to COM, EDU, GOV, MIL, ORG, CO, AC etc. will currently not be granted to avoid confusion with ccTLD practices that register 3rd level domains.
 

ACCEPTABLE DOMAIN NAMES
Ordinary registration clause:
An entity (person, organisation or company) residing in, providing information or services for or about The Gambia, or otherwise benefiting the local Internet community of The Gambia may register domain names through a registrar.

The name protection clause:
An organisation needing to protect their name may register a term if it is clearly and unambiguously identifying the registrant organisation. The validity of the connection is checked by the .GM ccTLD administration. When in doubt the given administrative contact / domain owner will be consulted to ascertain the connection between the applicant and the domain name.

Valid Admin contact email clause:
The Registrant (“owner”) of the domain should always be registered as the Admin contact, and must have an email address unrelated to the Registrar company.

The “Domain Squatting” clause:
The registration of domain names that is not intended to be active will not be registered as speculation in future needs for domain names is considered detrimental to the Internet community.

Valid domain name clause:
In addition to the limit on second-level names mentioned previously, the following restrictions apply:
A domain name can contain letters (a to z) and the hyphen (-). There is no distinction between upper or lower case characters.
A second-level domain may be up to 50 characters long
1-letter domains will not be delegated
Domains containing only numbers will not be delegated.
2-letter domains will only be delegated in special cases where an organisation has an internationally accepted 2-letter abbreviation)
Domains starting with a number will only be delegated in special cases under the name protection clause.
Domains of terms that are offensive to the local culture in any of the languages used in The Gambia will be declined.
Common Gambian personal names (first or last) will generally not be accepted.