.ca
 |
|
| Introduced | 1987 |
|---|---|
| TLD type | Country code top-level domain |
| Status | Active |
| Registry | Canadian Internet Registration Authority |
| Sponsor | Government of Canada |
| Intended use | Entities connected with Canada
|
| Actual use | Fairly popular in Canada, where .ca is advantageous when selling to a Canadian audience in Canadian dollars. Even so, often .com domains remain preferred in manufacturing and export trade. |
| Registered domains | More than 2.3 million (Q4 2015) |
| Registration restrictions | There are Canadian presence requirements for registrants |
| Structure | Provincially registered companies originally had to register at third level under province code, but now anybody may register at second level |
| Documents | Official CIRA documents |
| Dispute policies | CIRA Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (CDRP) |
| Website | CIRA |
| DNSSEC | yes |
.ca is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Canada. The domain name registry that operates it is the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA).
Registrants can register domains at the second level (e.g., example.ca). Third-level registrations in one of the geographic third-level domains defined by the registry (e.g. example.ab.ca) were discontinued on October 12, 2010, but existing third-level domain names continue to be supported.
Registrants of .ca domains must meet the Canadian Presence Requirements as defined by the registry. Examples of valid entities include:
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 1987. The first .ca domain was registered by the University of Prince Edward Island in January 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 non-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. On April 15, 2008, CIRA registered its one millionth .ca Internet domain name.
Any .ca registration has to be ordered via a certified registrar.
UBC's registry operations once favoured fourth-level names (such as city.toronto.on.ca) for purely local entities or third-level names for entities operating solely within one province. Nationally incorporated companies could have a .ca domain, while provincially incorporated companies required the letters of their province, like .mb.ca. Only an entity with presence in two or more provinces was typically registered directly under .ca; this complex structure (and the long delays in getting .ca registration) caused many Canadian entities to favour the .com, .org and .net registrations, despite the then-higher cost.
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