11 December 2013 FAITID signed registry agreements for the .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА TLDs.

The contracts allow starting the names’ registration in the Moscow domain extensions in April 2014. At the moment  registrars are accepting the preorders for the .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА domain names.

Before the registration in the TLDs begin pre-delegation testing and delegation procedure for them should be completed. This is planned to happen in March 2014.

“We’re glad that the agreements have been signed for two strings at the same time,” says Dmitry Burkov, FAITID Board Chairman. “Thus we are able to open registration in both strings at the same time as we planned initially. We consider this scenario as the most preferable and transparent for the registrants and end users”.

According to the FAITID plans first the .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА names will become available for the owners of marks that are verified by the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH). Then the registration process will be opened for the owners of trademarks valid in Russia and the owners of trade names, appellations of origin, mass-media and non-for-profit organisations from Moscow.

Names’ registration for anyone will be started in September 2014 with a Landrush period when the domains’ price will be gradually reduced. Standard registration cost ($USD 5 for registrars) will be effective during the General Availability period beginning in November 2014.

The project for the .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА TLDs implementation was started in 2010 and since 2011 has been coordinated by FAITID with the official support of the Moscow City Government.

The strings’ introduction is targeted at the Moscow awareness enhancement on the Internet, the creation of the online brand for the Russia’s capital, the attraction of the additional target audience to the websites related to the city and the development of its unified information space.

The project for the .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА TLDs introduction is officially represented in the GeoTLDs group that includes the applicants for the geographical extensions for different cities and regions all over the world (London, Paris, Africa etc.).