It was announced in November 2005 that the initial registration of domains would be free until the beginning of 2006, though with some limits on the number any individual was allowed to register.[2][3]
This was remarkably popular, with some 17,000 registrations coming in on the first day of the promotion.
Any .be registration has to be ordered via a registered agent. Domain names are registered directly at second level.
BELNET, the federal internet provider for scientific institutions, manages the.ac.be subdomain reserved for academic entities, with a policy of allowing only one active .ac.be domain per institution.
Because of this, most universities abandoned their .ac.be SLD as primary domain. This is whyucl.ac.be shifted touclouvain.be,fundp.ac.be tounamur.be,ulg.ac.be touliege.be orfusl.ac.be tousaintlouis.be when changing names.
The Flemish separatist partyVlaams Belang introduced a draft resolution in theParliament of the region ofFlanders demanding the creation of a Flemish top level domain .vl (forVlaanderen, Flanders inFlemish).[4]
However, this resolution failed to receive support of the region's other parties. Only recognized UN member states are eligible for a two-letter domain extension.[5]
In October 2008, the Flemish government expressed its intention to obtain a three-letter domain code for Flanders, like .vla, .vln or .fla. In 2014,.vlaanderen and.brussels were added, also administered by DNSBelgium.
The domain has also been in use as a logo for the federal government since 2003.[6]
.svg){kind=logo}