Introduced 1986 Registry FICORA | Status Active Sponsor FICORA | |
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TLD type Country code top-level domain Intended use Entities connected with Finland | ||
.fi is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Finland. It is operated by FICORA, the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority.
On December 4, 1986, an application to register top level domain for Finland was sent by Finnish Unix Users Group from Tampere. The application was accepted and the administration of .fi TLD was granted to Tampere University of Technology. Later the administration was transferred first to FICIX and later to FICORA.
In the past FICORA regulated .fi domains very strictly. Domain names were only admitted to company names or companies that owned trademarks. This policy led to Finnish companies' applying for domains under other top-level domains. The policy was changed on September 1, 2003. Since September 2016 anyone worldwide is permitted to register domain names under the .fi TLD.
.fi was once best known among non-Finnish internet users as the TLD of the Penet remailer (anon.penet.fi), a privately operated server which enabled users to post e-mail and Usenet messages anonymously in the early 1990s. Another popular .fi address in the early 1990s was nic.funet.fi, one of the largest public file servers at the time which made Finland the only country outside the US that sent out more data than it received.
Since September 1, 2005, .fi domains may contain Scandinavian letters (ä, å, ö), though they are not recommended to be used as the primary domain. Since March 1, 2006, private persons have also been able to apply for a domain name. Some restrictions still apply, for example, company names or trademarks can only be applied for by the companies concerned.
FICORA began supporting Domain Name System Security (DNSSEC) on .fi domain names in late 2010.