On July 3rd by pure luck I stumbled across a change that was to take place on the 5th in the way Estonia was allocating it’s .ee domain names.
Before the 5th you had to be an Estonian resident, Only one domain was allowed per person, Domains were free, Companies could only have their company name. From the 5th anyone was allowed unlimited domains and they were charging for a 1 year lease.
So upon reading this I signed up to Zone.ee one of the only Estonian domain registrars that had an English translation of their page and services. On the 5th I started my bid for the domain name mcgh.ee which is obviously my surname. I put in the request for the domain which happened to be available and so ordered it.
This is were things got complicated, having paid £16.50 I was told that I required an administrative contact in Estonia. So even though foreign people could now register a domain you still had to know an Estonian. This is where I am ever greatful to fallos from xda-developers.com who after a few messages agreed to be my representetive in Estonia. I then had to write a Power of Attorney/Mandate saying that I gave fallos the permission to register the domain on my behalf, I reworderd this PDF to relate to domain registration rather than accounts. After receiving my mandate fallos had to sign for the domain either by scanning his Estonian national ID card or attending the Zone.ee offices and signing for it there.
After all this had been accomplished the domain is now mine and I’m free to do what I want with it (apart from I would need fallos to resign if I wanted to change the name servers so I’ve used a zone file to point the domain at my servers)
Hi Rob,
Great post. Would you mind emailing me? I had a few questions I wanted to ask you about your process in registering an Estonian domain.
Hey Rob.
I was also interested in registering an Estonian domain but don’t have or know anyone with a local presence. Did you come across an domain registrars which had someone in Estonia and could offer the administrative contact?
Thanks for letting us know your experience.
It’s all here if you want to read through the rules – http://www.internet.ee/teavitus/en/
I am an Estonian citizen but not residing in Estonia but can still register a domain. So essentially you need someone legally living in Estonia or an Estonian citizen.