Swedish regulator PTS take most weird decision so far

Swedish Regulator PTS have today notfied .SE, the Swedish (.SE) TLD registry that they have to change the rules. You can find the press release here and the actual notice to .SE here (PDF).

In short, the decision implies that any form of the sequence of the characters “b”, “a”, “n”, “k” are illegal in domain names in Sweden. Further that checks of what domain names are registered are to be checked before registration.

This is, as people know (except PTS obviously), is not how domain name registration works. Instead, one is strengthening the dispute resolution process so that it is more well known what will happen if some infringement is happening. Next step is of course to have more terms than “bank” be added to this black list. Like registered trademarks in the world, and other terms. For example everything in Wikipedia!

I hope .SE is refusing to follow this rule.