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  • I am looking for a domain name registrant. Where can I look it up?

    The Whois is an easy-to-use tool for checking the availability of a .nl domain name. If the domain name is already taken, you can see who has registered it.

    On the page looking up a domain name you will find more information about what a domain name is, how the Whois works and how the privacy of personal data is protected. Alternatively, you can go straight to look for a domain name via the Whois.

  • I would like to transfer my domain name to another registrar. What is the procedure?

    To get your domain name transferred, you need the token (unique ID number) for your domain name. Your existing registrar has the token and is obliged to give it to you within five days, if you ask for it. The procedure for changing your registrar is described on the page transferring your domain name.

  • The details registered about me/my company are incorrect or out of date. How can I get them updated?

    To update the contact details associated with your domain name, you need to contact your registrar. Read more about updating contact details.

  • Why is my domain name in quarantine?

    When a domain name is cancelled, we aren't told the reason, so we can't tell you. You'll need to ask your registrar. The advantage of quarantine is that, if a name's cancelled by mistake, you can always get it back.

    One common reason is that the contract between you and your registrar says you've got to renew the registration every year. If you haven't set up automatic renewal and you don't renew manually, the registration will expire.

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    Wanneer je een klacht hebt over of een geschil met je registrar dan zijn er verschillende mogelijkheden om tot een oplossing te komen. Hierover lees je meer op pagina klacht over registrar. SIDN heeft geen formele klachtenprocedure voor het behandelen van een klacht over jouw registrar.

  • What conditions do I have to meet as a registrar?

    Would you like to be able to register domain names for customers or for your own organisation by dealing directly with SIDN? If so, you can become a .nl registrar. Read more about the conditions and how to apply for registrar status on the page becoming a registrar.

More frequently asked questions

Popular children's TV programme looks at artificial intelligence

SIDN Fund supports Het Klokhuis AI project

Campaign image of 'Het Klokhuis (the core) about AI'
  • Friday 22 March 2024

From robot vacuum cleaners to smart game consoles. The current generation of children is the first who will live their whole lives interacting with artificial intelligence, or 'AI' for short. So the popular Dutch children's TV programme Het Klokhuis has produced a 4-part series designed to prepare children for a future with ever more intelligent devices. The series looks at the work of scientists, technologists, designers and artists, and considers the societal and ethical dimensions of AI. "Children are now growing up with AI and many are adept at using smart devices," says Anneke Dorsman, Het Klokhuis's Managing Editor. "However, it doesn't follow that they really understand the technology behind the gadgets they live with."

Het Klokhuis on AI

Anneke Dorsman
Anneke Dorsman, editor-in-chief at Het Klokhuis

"Artificial intelligence is developing very rapidly, with major implications for the way we live in the future. It's therefore important that children understand what AI is, how it works in a technical sense, and how it shapes their lives," Anneke explains. "For example, a child will go on YouTube and be shown videos that they like. It's important that they're aware that their schoolfriends may see very different videos when they visit the platform, and why that is. It wasn't easy working out how to explain the concept of AI and the technology behind it in 4 short episodes, but the team who create this programme are incredibly good at coming up with solutions."

Recognisable scenes

"We've tried to illustrate the processes at work inside computers by using recognisable scenes from everyday life," continues Anneke. "Take a speech recognition program. If only men speak into the program, it'll learn to recognise men's voices and not women's or children's voices. So we put 20 men around a table with a microphone, so that children immediately have a mental image of the process. AI is often seen as a person, when in fact it's a computer program. When creating the scenes, we therefore made a conscious effort to always talk about 'the program' and not to humanise AI. The program doesn't have a mind of its own, it's simply programmed by people to process data."

SIDN Fund's Elise van Schaik: "AI is everywhere and plays an increasingly important role in our lives. However, it's a difficult thing for children to understand, even though they're already interacting with it and are going to have even more to do with it in the future. Het Klokhuis has enormous experience explaining difficult topics clearly and accessibly. I'm therefore really pleased that we've been able to contribute to development of the AI Studio, where children can play around with AI and learn how it works. In fact, I had a lot of fun and learnt a few things myself when I visited the AI Studio and used AI to do a drawing."

AI and Language

Elise van Schaik, project coordinator at SIDN Fund

"My favourite episode is the one about language. For that one, the editorial team got ChatGPT to write a new script for The Cowboys, a humorous sketch series that features in Het Klokhuis. The project was supervised by Jurrian van Dongen, who writes the Cowboy sketches. The chatbot did a pretty good job. It had no problem reproducing all the routine elements, such as the name-play at the start of the sketch. However, the chatbot still found abstract thinking and humour difficult. When we asked ChatGPT to make the sketch funnier, it simply suggested adding a laughter soundtrack in the background and getting the actors to wear red noses. Those ideas are clearly linked to humour, but aren't actually funny in themselves."

Teaching pack and AI Studio

"There's not yet much teaching material that deals with AI," says Anneke. "And many teachers see it as a challenging subject. So we've developed a teaching pack for use in school, with a supporting online tool called the AI Studio. It runs in a secure environment and features interactive stories in which children can have fun experimenting with and learning about AI. For example, they can have a go at training an AI bot themselves, ask AI to help them do a drawing, or get AI to generate an image. Say, a picture of a strawberry in a pink tutu, dancing on the moon, in the style of Picasso. Or a 3D image of a teddy bear reading on an island. Children never tire of playing around with that tool. Because, of course, there's something magical about a machine that can create anything you like."

Support from SIDN Fund

"At Het Klokhuis, we like to do one big project each year, which we devote more time to or develop extra material for. And the AI Studio was our big project idea for the year. We made a grant application to SIDN Fund, and received both financial support and access to the Fund's network, which proved very useful. For example, the people at SIDN Fund were able to suggest artists and scientists who might be interested in working with us. One amusing aspect of all this is that we made our grant application 2 years ago, before last year's AI explosion. So the AI-generated illustrations included in the original plan now look quite outdated. The technology has come on that far in just 2 years."