.it is the national top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to Italy. Registration is open to organisations and individuals of legal age who are citizens or residents of/headquartered in the countries of the European Economic Area (EEA), the Vatican State, the Republic of San Marino and the Swiss Confederation. Since 11 July 2012, .it has also supported internationalised domain names. History The first .it domain requested was that of the CNR (National Research Council: cnuce.cnr.it); the request was sent on 23 December 1987, and the domain became active on 1 January 1988. On 23 December 1987, IANA assigned the .it ccTLD to CNUCE, an institute of the CNR in Pisa, and the first name registered was that of the CNR's CNUCE. In 1997, the task was passed on to the Institute for Telematic Applications (Istituto per le Applicazioni Telematiche, IAT), also at the CNR in Pisa, which was born out of the necessary expansion of the 'Research Network Infrastructure Department' (Reparto Infrastrutture Reti per la Ricerca, RIRR) of the CNUCE. Policies and rules were agreed with operators in the sector using a variety of forms. After the setting-up of the initial group, called MAIL-ITA, followed by ITA-PE 162 (which held its meetings at the CSELT) in 1994, 1998 saw the establishment of the Italian Naming Authority, which was responsible for drafting the rules for assigning '.it' domains until 2005. This structure differed from the Italian Registration Authority, which was responsible for keeping the Registry of names and made available the technical infrastructure needed to maintain it, thereby also including the management of authoritative DNS delegations. In 1999, the Naming Authority carried out a 'liberalisation' of the ccTLD by removing the limit on the number of domain names that could be registered for organisations of any kind. In the same year, management of the Registry passed to the Institute's Director Franco Denoth. In 2001, a merger of several institutes of the CNR gave rise to the Institute of Informatics and Telematics, which consequently took over responsibility. In 2004, the limit on the number of registrations was also removed for natural persons. As of 2005, the Registry took over both regulatory and implementation functions with the establishment of an internal committee (the Steering Committee) that included representatives of the sector's operators. In 2009, the '.it' ccTLD Registry changed its name to Registro .it, the registry of Italian domains. Following Denoth's death in April 2006,