National ".me" domain brings multimillion benefit to Montenegro, Government manages national domain in careful manner

Podgorica, Montenegro (18 July 2016) -- Government of Montenegro has carried out the public international tender to select the agent for national ".me" domain registration, as well as the entire process of the national domain management, in a transparent manner in order to protect national interests, and under the national and international law. The fact that this project of public-private partnership has brought more than EUR 20 million of revenue to Montenegro shows the visible economic interest of the country as well.

The result of the international tender shows that the best bid was submitted by an international consortium, led by the US company “GoDaddy“. Furthermore, a series of economic analysis and evaluations pointed to the fact that better valorisation of ".me" domain will be ensured if Montenegro selects companies that have already demonstrated good performance in this particular industry, and are also a global players and the best companies in the industry of internet domain.

The international consortium has established a company in Montenegro in order to make its operations more functional, but also to enable Montenegro to provide tax inflow from this cooperation. On this occasion, we wish to deny the arbitrary and inaccurate statements that our partner is a local company. Agent of registration has duly fulfilled all its obligations under the Treaty on the Agent of domain ".me" registration, which can be confirmed by the financial documentation regarding the implementation of the Treaty and the payment to the Government of Montenegro.

Centre for Information Systems of the University of Montenegro is a technical administrator monitoring and implementing the technical part of the activities related to the implementation of the national ".me" domain, but it did not have technical and commercial capacity, as well as and human resources, to perform tasks of a registration agent at a global scale, and it did not meet the tender criteria, which is proves by the fact that the Centre for Information Systems of the University of Montenegro was not a bidder in the tender.

In order to manage the Internet domain smoothly and according to the rules prescribed by the worldwide internet community, certain bodies have been set up to monitor and implement all activities aimed at developing the domain: we have the Agent of ".me" domain registration - a consortium consisted of reputable world's companies, Afilias registry - also a global leader in advanced registry services, as well as local ME-net company and, on the other hand, we have the technical administrator of ".me" domain - Centre for Information Systems of the University of Montenegro.

The statements issued by the representatives of the Democrats party and MPs are arbitrary and untrue and aimed at political election propaganda with the aim of harming our international partners' reputation.

We claim that this is one of the best projects implemented in Montenegro and one of the best examples of public-private partnerships in the region and Europe.

Valorisation of this virtual good has brought over EUR 20 million into the state budget of Montenegro, and the Government has been managing the national ".me" domain as a good host. 

Due to this partnership, over a million of domains with this address have been registrated and made an outstanding internet promotion of Montenegro. The ".me" domain has become one of the fastest growing domains at the global level in the history of the Internet. 

Cooperation with the international partner, led by the US company ''GoDaddy,“ is of great importance for both the internet industry and branding and promotion of Montenegro on the world stage. The success of this partnership will lead to Montenegro's high-quality and internationally visible branding.