Foreign Country TLDs (Domain Registration)

[oatmealdesign]

Hi folks,

I have a customer that will be doing business in several countries and would like to snap up the country TLDs for his company name. I was able to grab a few of them, but it appears you must have an address within country for many of them (similar to a .ca domain name). Is there any way around this - could we rent a PO box in one of those countries to validate this? Could we make an arrangement with a local to put their address - or fudge an address? Is it illegal to fudge an address on these things or is this an ICANN rule rather than a legal issue? Are there services that will do this for you at a price and can they be trusted?

Looking for anyone with experience in these issues to let me know your knowledge and how you solved this issue.

Thank you,

OD

 

[Kate]

Each TLD is different.

- Sometimes you need to be citizen/local resident (.ca).
- Sometimes you need to have a bona fide connection with the country (.us, .ie)
- Sometimes the holder can be anywhere but a local admin contact is required (.de)
- Sometimes you need to be a local company
- Sometimes you need to have a trademark and be a local company (.lb)
- ...

There are ways around this, some are perfectly legal, some belong to the gray area:
- using a straw man to be the domain holder: not recommended for critical domains because there is a legal risk, also what happens if the person dies or whatever. Plus, some TLDs (eg. Canada) expressly forbid that kind of arrangement
- puting fake data in the whois (not recommended), also there is a risk somebody will dig the record or the registry does a spotcheck.
- incorporate a local company
- own a trademark that covers the target country

Again, each TLD has specific requirements. Make sure you understand the rules so that the ownership of the domains will not be jeopardized later.
You can post the relevant extensions here.
I am quite familiar with international domain registrations, probably can give you quick directions if the TLDs ain't too exotic.

FYI Icann does not have authority over ccTLDs.

 

[Ted.T]

You should check EuroDNS, 101Domain.com. They offer local presence in many countries, so there is no problem to register ccTLDs.