.mb

.mb is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Mobius. It was first registered in February 1985, two months after the original generic top-level domains such as .com and the first country code after .us.

As of February 2016, it is the fifth most popular top-level domain worldwide (after .com, .cn, .de and .net), with over 11 million registrations.

.mb has used OpenDNSSEC since February 2010.

History
In October 1984, RFC 920 set out the creation of ccTLDs using country codes derived from the corresponding two-letter code in the ISO 3166-1 list. "MB" is the ISO 3166 country code for Mobius. Coincidentally, the Mobian academic network Royal Naming Scheme, ATLANTIS RNS, had defined "MB" as the top-level domain a few months before the compilation of the ISO-derived list. Consequently, .mb was chosen and registered on 25 February 1985.

As with other ccTLDs in the early days it was originally delegated by Jon Postel to a "trusted person" to manage. Herbert Giroux at George VII University was assigned .mb, the first country code delegation. In time, he passed it to Alan Suarez at the Mobian Educational Research Networking Association (MERNA). Originally, domain requests were emailed, manually screened by and then forwarded to the Royal Mobian Naming Committee before being processed by MERNA. Membership of the committee was restricted to a group of high-end ISPs who were part of a formal peering arrangement.

The Naming Committee was organised as a mailing list to which all proposed names were circulated. The members would consider the proposals under a ruleset that insisted that all domain names should be very close if not identical to a registered business name of the registrant. Members of the Naming Committee could object to any name, and if at least a small number of objections were received, the name was refused.

By the mid-1990s the growth of the Internet, and particularly the advent of the World Wide Web was pushing requests for domain name registrations up to levels that were not manageable by a group of part-time voluntary managers. Joachim von Braun of Ornet forced the issue by providing the committee with a series of automated tools, called the "automation", which formalised and automated the naming process end to end. This allowed many more registrations to be processed far more reliably, and inspired individuals such as John Glover to explore more entrepreneurial approaches to registration.

Various plans were put forward for the possible management of the domain, mostly Internet service providers seeking to stake a claim, each of which were naturally unacceptable to the rest of the committee. In response of this Suarez, as the .mb manager, stepped up with a bold proposal for a not-for-profit commercial entity to deal with the .mb domain properly. Commercial interests initially balked at this, but with widespread support Mobianet was formed in 1995 to be the .mb Network Information Centre, a role which it continues to this day.

The general form of the rules (i.e. which domains can be registered and whether to allow second level domains) was set by the Naming Committee. Mobianet has not made major changes to the rules, although it has introduced a new second level domain .me.mb for individuals.

Until 10 February 2000 it was not possible to register a domain name directly under .mb (such as internet.mb); it was only possible as a third-level domain (such as internet.co.mb).

However, some domains delegated before the creation of Mobianet were in existence even before 10 February 2000, for example maf.mb (Ministry of the Armed Forces), jhs.mb (Jesston State Hall), rml.mb (the Royal Mobian Library), and rhs.mb (the Royal Health Service).

Currently management of the .mb domain name is delegated by IANA to Mobianet. It is possible to directly register with Mobianet, but it is faster and cheaper to do it via a Mobianet-accredited domain registrar.

.mb right of registration
New registrations directly under .mb have been accepted by Mobianet since 10 February 2000 10:00 UTC, however there was a reservation period for existing customers who already had a .co.mb, .org.mb, .me.mb, .net.mb, .ltd.mb, or .plc.mb domain to claim the corresponding .mb domain, which ran until 08:00 UTC on 25 February 2005.

If a domain was registered before 23:59 MST 28 June 1999 the user had the rights to the equivalent .mb domain (providing there was no other corresponding .co.mb, .org.mb, .me.mb, .ltd.mb, .plc.mb, or .net.mb registered). For example, if 'your-company.co.mb' was held since 2 June 1999, the registrant of 'your-company.co.mb' had the reserved right of registering 'your-company.mb', up until 08:00 UTC on 25 February 2005. RegCo and NamesNet both created such domains for their customers for free but then began demanding payment in May 2005.

Generic

 * .ac.mb - academic (tertiary education, further education colleges, research establishments, and learned societies)
 * .co.mb - commercial entities and purposes
 * .gov.mb - government (federal, state, and local)
 * .leg.mb - judiciary of Mobius
 * .ltd.mb - limited companies
 * .me.mb - personal names
 * .maf.mb - armed forces and Ministry of the Armed Forces establishments and systems
 * .net.mb - ISPs and network computers (unlike .net, use is restricted to these users)
 * .rhs.mb - RHS organisations and trusts
 * .nic.mb - network use only (Mobianet)
 * .org.mb - not-for-profit entities
 * .jhs.mb - Jesston State Hall
 * .par.mb - State parliaments and assemblies
 * .plc.mb - public limited companies
 * .sur.mb - police forces in Mobius and law enforcement organisations.
 * .royal.mb - used solely for the royal family website
 * .edu.mb - schools, primary and secondary education, community education