The registration of domain names that is not intended to be active or does not
sufficiently and correctly claim the reason for the domain request in the NIC template
will not be granted to avoid "re-selling" and commercial exploitation of high profile domains.
The applying organization/entity must either be registered in The Gambia or have strong
ties and/or registering it must be considered beneficial to Internet development in The Gambia.

GENERAL

The policy of the NIC is to allow activity that empowers and enhances Internet services in the country. Access to Internet Services came late (The Gambia got FI only in October 1998) but has a lot of potential in The Gambia's situation.

HOW TO REGISTER

The only valid way currently of registering domains under .GM is by presenting a valid template by e-mail to Admin or by submitting our Online domain registration form.

2ND AND 3RD LEVEL DOMAINS IN THE GAMBIA

The Gambia NIC registers 2nd level domains under the GM domain. There is no provision for 3rd level domain registration and so all Internet addresses under the GM ccTLD has the format server.domain.gm.
Domain owners with their own domain name servers can of course create subdomains under their registered domain(s). The 2nd level domains COM, EDU, GOV, MIL, ORG, CO, AC etc. will currently not be granted to avoid confusion with ccTLD practices that register 3rd level domains.


ACCEPTABLE DOMAIN NAMES

The name must have some connection with the applicant's company or organization. The validity of the connection is checked by the NIC. When in doubt the given administrative contact / domain owner will be consulted to ascertain the connection between the applicant and the domain name.
NB! The owner of the domain should always be registered as the Admin contact.
The registration of domain names that is not intended to be active or does not sufficiently and correctly claim the reason for the domain request in the NIC template will not be granted to avoid "re-selling" and commercial exploitation of high profile domains.

One letter domains will not be registered. Two letter domains will only be registered in the case of an indisputable trademark or company name (generally accepted abbreviation). No name that can be considered offensive will be registered. Personal names will generally not be registered. Domain names can contain letters and numbers and the hyphen (-). A domain name must start with a letter. There is no case sensitivity (for instance MyDomain and mydomain is the same domain name).


LOCAL DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATION

The applying organization/entity must either be registered in The Gambia or have strong ties and/or registering the domain must be considered beneficial to the local Internet community or development of Internet services in The Gambia.


REGISTRATION FOR NAME PROTECTION

The general rule is that a domain registration should introduce services beneficial to the Internet community in The Gambia , but there is a provision to allow multinational companies to protect their trademark or name. The NIC will evaluate each application, in general a domain that is already active under other top level domains (particularly COM) and belongs to a well known and serious organization/entity can get their name registered under GM to avoid name piracy.