The Registry for the .gr Domain Names (GR-Hostmaster), a department of the Institute of Computer Science of the Foundation for Research and Technology (FORTH-ICS), as decided by a call for tender issued by the EETT, has been in charge of the operation and maintenance of the .gr Top Level Domain.
FORTH-ICS registered and started operating the .gr Top Level Domain in 1989. A widely used protocol in Registry applications was also chosen, the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP).
Usage of this EPP protocol allows the connection of Registrars with the Registry, through applications supplied by the Registry as well as through applications developed by the Registrars to better serve their Registrants.
During the development process of the Registry tools, special attention was paid to the ability to register and manage Domain Names with native Greek characters. As a result, since July the 4th 2005 it is possible to register Greek character Domain Names, such as [όνομα.gr].
