Legal Information

Legal basis and Dispute Resolution Service for .ch domain names

By order of the Federal Office of Communications

SWITCH operates the .ch domain name registry on behalf of the Federal Office of Communications OFCOM. As an independent foundation, SWITCH puts its longstanding experience and significant technical expertise to work to fulfil this demanding task. Find out more about SWITCH as a registry

General Terms and Conditions (GTC) for the registration and administration of domain names under the domain ".ch" and ".li"

General Terms and Conditions (PDF)

Acceptable Use Policy

Our Acceptable Use Policy governs the conditions for the use of the Domain Name Lookup to query or process personal data.

Revocation and blocking of .ch domain names - Guidelines for authorities

In cases of criminal or administrative proceedings, authorities may approach SWITCH with requests to revoke or block domain names. In collaboration with OFCOM, SWITCH has developed guidelines for how an authority should proceed in such cases and what scope for action is available to SWITCH when responding to instructions from authorities.

Interested authorities can request the guidelines in German, French or Italian by email from legal@switch.ch.

When a new domain name is registered, no check is made as to whether it violates any third-party rights. You are responsible for ensuring that your chosen domain name does not violate any rights pertaining to names, trademarks or other distinguishing symbols. Certain terms are legally protected. In particular, the name of a political commune in Switzerland may only be registered by that commune.

The following links will aid your research:

www.zefix.ch Central Business Names Index of Switzerland

www.swissreg.ch Search for Swiss trademarks and applications in the online database of the Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IGE). This is not a substitute for professional searches because it is not possible to search for similar trademarks and international trademarks with protection in Switzerland.
Professional trademark searches (including searches for similar trademarks and international trademarks with protection in Switzerland) are available privately or through the IGE.

The Dispute Resolution Service for .ch domain names was set up to resolve disputes over the rights to domain names.

More on the Dispute Resolution Service

Registrars for .ch

Registering new .ch domain names: Please select a registrar.
Domain names that are already registered: Please contact the registrar administering your domain name for any changes.

List of all registrars

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