and the Department of Science and Technology, respectively. At that time domain fees ranged from Php 450 to Php 1,350. Domains registered during this period had no expiration and therefore had no renewal rates, thus the label lifetime domains. However, a fee was charged for modifications to these domains. Lifetime domains were non-transferable, and were only valid for the lifetime of the original Registrant. PH Domain Foundation and dotPH In August 1999 Disini and the technical people at EMC formed the PH Domain Foundation. It sought to promote the Internet and free unlimited email services in rural areas. It also took charge of the domain selling business and the management of the .ph domain registry. On October 1, 1999, the PH Domain Foundation launched a fully automated online system for domain registration. It also launched a flat .ph domain space, enabling people to register domains like "domainname.ph". Lifetime domain registration was halted, and all domains registered after October 1 subsequently carried expiration dates. These domain owners had to pay a fee to renew their domains. At around this period, the "for-profit" business and technical side of the PH Domain Foundation became identified as dotPH. Activities related to domains and the business were now attributed to dotPH, such as the resolution on the dispute between Yahoo! Philippines and another Philippine company, the launching of the automated online registration system, and even the administration of the .ph domain registry itself. To this day, dotPH is the official domain registry of the Philippines. Other developments In 2000, dotPH developed a system called the Shared Registry System (SRS) which enabled domain name registrars and ISP's to manage domains and accept registrations on their own website by connecting to the dotPH registry backend. This is done by downloading and installing on their server a module that does the actual communication with the registry backend using an XML-based protocol. dotPH also became one of the first Philippine websites to accept online credit card payments. Through the years, dotPH has expanded its offerings to more than just domain names. Becoming a Google Cloud Partner in 2016 allowed dotPH to offer cloud and collaboration solutions in addition to services such as web hosting, SSL certificates and website builders. dotPH currently uses the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP), the most widely used protocol for communicating between Domain Registries and Registrars, to process domain registrations and renewals. Notes External links Current