Romania's web code - a shortcut to Korea

Romania’s web code has drawn the attention of the Asians, who have registered several sites with the “ro” extension, belonging to Korean companies operating in the field of constructions and designing on-line portals in this language. “Ro” is the shortcut for the Korean “street.”

Romania has thus entered the number of states whose web address terminations are increasingly used by foreign companies.

The best-known examples are the Republic of Moldova, whose web extension “md” is the shortcut of “medical,” and Tuvalu, an island in the Pacific Ocean, whose web extension is “tv,” largely used by the TV stations.

Among the Internet addresses registered by the Korean companies there are www.va.ro, www.1004.ro, and www.ks.ro. “The first registrations of the Korean companies were performed in 1998,” sources within RNC (Romanian National Computer Network, the regulating authority of Internet domains in Romania) told Ziarul Financiar.

The only active site in the above-mentioned list is www.va.ro. The www.1004.ro site must have been registered in order to protect the international site www.1004.com, also administered by a Korean company, while www.ks.ro is not active yet.

According to the Korean businessmen in Romania, interviewed by Ziarul Financiar, “ro’ is the shortcut for “street” or “way,” but only when it is used together with the name of that particular street.

As a word of its own, “ro” has no meaning, they explained. The meaning of “street” must have been linked with “indicator” or “portal” as the web masters intended to protect their own name.

The two letters designating the country extension were used in many real businesses, as, last year, Moldova sold the right to issue Internet addresses with the “md” extension for 1 million dollars.

One solution to register a medical site is www.register.md, where www.cardiology.md, www.gynecology.md and www.malpractice.md are still available. www.osteo.md has been already registered. The prices are negotiable.

The price for a site with the “tv” extension ranges between 50 dollars (www.american-dornier.tv) and 100,000 dollars (www.free.tv, www.china.tv). www.jobs.tv, www.play.tv, www.software.tv, www.comedy.tv or www.surf.tv are still available.

Registering an address such as www.name.ro may currently take five days, depending on how soon the customers pay the 61 dollars. The simplest way to do that is accessing www.rnc.ro, filling an on-line form and sending the applicant’s invoice over the next days.