.CA - Generic Top-Level Domain gTLD

.ca is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Canada. Registrants of .ca domains must meet Canadian Presence Requirements as defined by the registry. Examples of valid entities include:

a Canadian citizen of the age of majority,
a permanent resident of Canada,
a legally recognized Canadian organization,
an Inuit, First Nation, Métis or other people indigenous to Canada,
an Indian Band as defined in the Indian Act of Canada,
a foreign resident of Canada that holds a registered Canadian trademark, or
a division of the government
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Registrants can either register domains at the second level (e.g. example.ca) or at the third level in one of the
geographic second-level domains defined by the registry (e.g. example.ab.ca).

The domain name was originally allocated by Jon Postel, operator of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), to John Demco of the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1988.

In 1997, at the Canadian annual Internet conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the Canadian Internet community, with a view to liberalize registration procedures and substantially improve turnaround times, decided to undertake reform of the .ca Registry.

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is a not for profit Canadian corporation that is responsible for operating the .ca Internet country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) today. It assumed operation of the .ca ccTLD on December 1, 2000 from UBC.

Any .ca registration has to be ordered via a certified registrar.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article ".ca".