Naukowa i Akademicka Sieć Komputerowa

Naukowa i Akademicka Sieć Komputerowa ("Research and Academic Computer Network") or NASK is a Polish research and development organization and data networks operator.

NASK is the .pl ccTLD registry. While launching in 2003 a domain automatic registration system by means of EPP (), NASK introduced the Partner Programme within the scope of registration and service of domain names. The NASK Partner Programme is a solution operating in accordance with the world recognised “Registry-Registrar” model. NASK (Registry) provides its Partners (Registrars) with the functionality of independent registering and servicing domain names in the .pl domain registry.

Each entrepreneur, meeting the technical and formal requirements specified by NASK, may become a NASK’s Partner. The Partner Programme gives subscribers an opportunity to choose the most attractive offer from a number of Polish and foreign providers rendering domain name related services. Currently, over 99.9 percent of all domain name registrations are effected by NASK’s Partners.

In 2003, NASK, as one of the first registries in the world, introduced the maintenance of domain names with diacritic signs (Internationalized Domain Names). Also in 2003, on the NASK’s initiative, the Court of Conciliation for Internet Domains organized at the Polish Chamber of Information Technology and Telecommunications was established. Besides domain registration, NASK offers through its Partners such services as Waiting List Service (WLS) – the so-called “option” enabling the purchase of the 3-year period of priority for registration of a domain name in case it has been deleted, or Domain Name Tasting (DNT) – a service consisting in registration of a domain name for the period of 14 days for the purpose of testing its attractiveness.

Since the end of September 2009, NASK has been cooperating with the Partners on the basis of a prepaid model, where the fee for registration is collected automatically from the Partner’s account. In order to increase the .pl domain security, since 20 December 2011 NASK has begun to implement DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) in the production environment, and since 4 June 2012 subscribers have been allowed to forward to the .pl registry the DS records of secured domain names.

Since 1 July 2013, in accordance with the agreement concluded with IPPT PAN (Institute of Fundamental Technological Research Polish Academy of Sciences), NASK has been providing the maintenance of .gov.pl domain names. NASK is the official representative of Poland in organizations such as FIRST, CENTR and ICANN, which in turn authorizes NASK to indirectly influence the operation of DNS.