Ministry of Communications recently announced a new one Government Decision regarding the registration method of .ro domains through ROTLD (Romania Top Level Domain). Starting with the date on which the respective Government Decision will be published in Official Gazette, besides registration fee, ROTLD will also start charging annual renewal fees for newly registered domains, and for already registered domain names the owners will have at their disposal 3 months to them renew (by paying the above-mentioned fee, which, apparently, will be 10 Euros + VAT).
According to the decision, domain names. ro will be registered on o the determined period of at least one year, which can later be extended by renewal. The maximum period for which it will be possible to register or renew a .ro domain name will be 2 years.
Regarding one of the reasons why ROTLD decided to introduce annual fee for .ro domains, this seems to aim updating the information about active domains, the domains used and unused domains as well as the possibility of unlocking purchased and unused domains in order to provide users with the right to use their names. But the main reason is obviously a financial one:
As a result of the analysis of the trends and practices on the international markets and taking into account the maintenance expenses, the costs for ensuring data security, the necessary investments for dedicated equipment and penetration tests, the maintenance expenses with the database put in the public service in order to query the data (Whois), it was concluded that at this moment it is necessary to change the policy in the field of domain name registration in Romania by introducing the fee for the specified period (annual fee)
I am currently over 710,000 .ro domain names registered through ROTLD, and the cost of such a domain, according to the data available on the website www.rotld.ro is still 51.26$ + TVA.
Source: Mediafax
STEALTH SETTINGS – Annual renewal fees for .ro domains
