.nu

Overview

• .nu is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to the island state of Niue.
• Introduced on 20 June 1997, it was marketed broadly as an alternative to generic TLDs (like .com/.net/.org).
• The string "nu" coincides with the word for "now" in Swedish, Danish and Dutch (and archaic Norwegian), which contributed to its popularity as a domain-hack and for time/real‑time sites.

History

• 1997: IANA delegated administration of .nu to the Internet Users Society — Niue (IUSN Foundation), a non-profit organization.
• March 2000: .nu Domain Ltd became an early TLD to offer Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs).
• September 2013: administrative and technical operation of .nu was transferred to The Internet Foundation in Sweden (Internetstiftelsen / IIS).
• 2003 onward: the government of Niue has sought to obtain administration/control of the ccTLD.
• November 2018: Niue initiated legal action in the Stockholm District Court claiming the domain had been taken "unfairly"; Niue sought damages and control.
• March 2024: a ruling (reported in source material) came out in favor of Internetstiftelsen; related appeal proceedings are noted, with an appeal hearing date set for May 2025 (per available sources).
• As of 31 March 2024 there were 227,485 registered .nu domains. DNSSEC is enabled for the zone.

Usage and Audience

• .nu is widely used outside Niue, especially in Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and historically in Norway.
• Common uses:
  • Domain hacks and real-time/"now" sites (for example: tv.nu, waarbenjij.nu).
  • General registrations by individuals and organisations in Northern Europe because "nu" means "now" in several languages.
• Many .nu registrations have no direct connection to Niue.

Registration Rules

• Registrations are permitted at the second level.
• Eligibility and restrictions: sources state "None" for restrictions (open registration), but registrants must follow the registry's terms and conditions and blocked/reserved name policies.
• Character set and IDN support:
  • Allowed characters include letters a–z, digits 0–9, hyphens, and additional letters used in Swedish, other Nordic languages and Western European languages (examples: å, ä, ö, ü, é).
  • A published character table is maintained by the registry for exact allowed IDN characters.
  • Historical note: .nu implemented early IDN support (full Unicode conversion on servers) but in March 2010 transitioned to standard punycode-based IDN handling and restricted the accepted character set to a subset aligned with ISO-8859-1/western European characters.
• Technical/format restrictions (registry-level):
  • A domain cannot begin with a hyphen.
  • A domain cannot have a hyphen directly before ".nu".
  • A domain cannot have hyphens in both positions three and four simultaneously.
  • The German sharp s (ß) must be rewritten to "ss" at registration.
• Dispute policy: UDRP is used for domain disputes involving .nu.
• Revocation policy: the registry revokes domains (without refund) for activities such as hosting child sexual abuse images, phishing, spamming, email theft, search-engine abuse or other unlawful purposes.

SEO and Brand Impact

• Google treats .nu as a generic top-level domain (gTLD) for indexing and regional targeting purposes because users and site owners often perceive it as generic rather than country-specific.
• The TLD was actively marketed as an alternative to gTLDs and benefited from being a memorable domain-hack for "now"-oriented services, particularly in Northern Europe, which shaped its brand positioning.

Notable Cases or Examples

• tv.nu and waarbenjij.nu are examples of .nu being used for "now"/real-time and conversational sites.
• library.nu: in February 2012 the site was taken offline after publishers obtained an injunction; its domain name was also revoked by the registrar.
• nudomain.com UDRP (2005): proceedings have referenced parties operating the .nu registry and trademark claims around ".nudomain".
• Litigation over control of .nu: Niue's legal actions against the registry (IIS/Internetstiftelsen) and earlier controversies involving agreements with private parties (as reported) are central to the domain's modern history.
• Technical milestone: one of the first TLDs to offer IDN registrations (circa 2000), later moving to punycode-based IDN support in 2010.

% IANA WHOIS server
% for more information on IANA, visit http://www.iana.org
% This query returned 1 object

domain:       NU

organisation: The IUSN Foundation
address:      P.O. Box 91
address:      Alofi 1010
address:      Niue

contact:      administrative
name:         Emani Fakaotimanava-Lui
organisation: The IUSN Foundation
address:      Main Road
address:      Omahi
address:      Alofi Tokelau 1010
address:      Niue
phone:        +64212352355
fax-no:       +683 4237
e-mail:       admin@iusn.org

contact:      technical
name:         NU Technical Contact
organisation: The Internet Infrastructure Foundation
address:      Box 92073
address:      Stockholm SE-120 07
address:      Sweden
phone:        +46 8 452 35 00
fax-no:       +46 8 452 35 02
e-mail:       noc@nic.nu

nserver:      A.NS.NU 194.146.106.22 2001:67c:1010:5:0:0:0:53
nserver:      C.NS.NU 192.36.144.107 2a01:3f0:0:301:0:0:0:53
nserver:      D.NS.NU 2001:67c:124c:e000:0:0:0:4 213.108.25.4
nserver:      M.NS.NU 194.0.11.112 2001:678:e:112:0:0:0:53
nserver:      Y.NS.NU 185.159.197.150 2620:10a:80aa:0:0:0:0:150
nserver:      Z.NS.NU 185.159.198.150 2620:10a:80ab:0:0:0:0:150
ds-rdata:     41209 13 2 46159142140bbf89ecb41e202f88da8c7d8a51b584aa5ea4a28ceaaaf9091185

whois:        whois.iis.nu

status:       ACTIVE
remarks:      Registration information:
remarks:      https://www.internetstiftelsen.se

created:      1997-06-20
changed:      2025-07-03
source:       IANA