The .ae Domain Administration (.aeDA) of the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) announced a new initiative to donate 50 distinguished Emirati websites, national domains under .ae for a whole year free of charge to encourage them to use the UAE national domain name (.ae) and to highlight their Emirati identity on the Internet.
The agreement was between the TRA and the Emirates Internet Group (EIG) for the .aeDA to cover the fees of registering 50 UAE websites under the national domain name (.ae) for a year, where the EIG chooses the websites that the conditions of the donation apply upon.
To this end, H.E. Mohamed Nasser Al Ghanim, TRA Director General, stated: “Committed to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and in support to young Emirati websites, the TRA has decided to award these websites via granting them the registration of the national domain (.ae) for a year, where the EIG will place the standards of choosing the websites on which the conditions of these standards apply upon.” “The purpose of this donation is to encourage all companies and individuals in the UAE to use the national domain name (.ae), since it represents the UAE identity on the Internet,” added Al Ghanim.
In his turn, Mr. Khalid Bin Thani, EIG President and President of the Arab Union of Internet Societies, said: “It is our pleasure to do this task to serve the UAE national domain name in order to enhance the UAE name on the Internet.” “There are many benefits in using the UAE national domain name (.ae) in comparison to other domain names, especially highlighting the UAE identity on the Internet and the availability of a large number of attractive names under (.ae), which are nearly impossible to acquire under other domain names such as (.com),” added Bin Thani.
“The standards on which the donation will be granted to chosen websites are in two categories: for the existing websites that wish to convert from (.com) to (.ae), and for the young males and females that wish to establish new websites; where the theme and the goals of the website will be taken into consideration upon choosing,” concluded Bin Thani.
hmm it seem a good move for the government to build the importance of your own country domain. If not an Emirati who would buy them.