The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 4th that it will start accepting general registrations for newly introduced three-level .kr domains: ‘ai.kr’, ‘it.kr’, ‘io.kr’, and ‘me.kr’, starting from the 5th of this month.
As new technologies and industries, including artificial intelligence (AI), rapidly develop, the government is actively promoting related policies, such as establishing an AI Basic Law. As part of this effort, a new .kr domain has been introduced for the first time in 22 years.
The .kr domains can be registered for an annual fee of around 20,000 won (depending on the registrar), making them cheaper compared to similar foreign national domains, which cost around 100,000 won. Additionally, each new .kr domain can be interpreted and utilized in various ways according to user preference, such as artificial intelligence (ai), information technology (it), digital (io), and personal (me), as well as popular items (IT items → it) and medical (medical → me).
These new .kr domains can be registered by any corporation or individual with an address in South Korea. They can be 2 to 63 characters long, mixing numbers and hyphens (-). Domain registration can be done through the websites of 15 domain name registration agents.
Uhm Yeol, Director of Information and Communications Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, stated, “With the advent of the AI era, we have introduced new .kr domains to reflect the demand related to new technologies or industries. We expect that users who wish to build their domestic corporate or personal brand can protect their trademarks and express their brand identity through new domain registrations, thereby enhancing their competitiveness.”