Prior to April 2003, the rules governing domains under the .se top domain were highly restrictive. Only companies, associations and authorities registered nationwide were allowed to register a domain, and it had to be very similar to the registered name. Individual products were not eligible for separate second-level domain names, even if they were registered trademarks. (Trademarks could register under tm.se but that was not considered satisfactory. Several companies formed daughter companies named after products to circumvent this rule and protect the trademark.) Individuals could register one (and only one) domain with the suffix .pp.se ("pp" is an abbreviation for "private person"), and companies and organizations registered in just a single county were eligible for domains with a <county letter>.se suffix. Non-profit organisation names are registered on county level in Sweden. Sports clubs do not need to register their name, but that was needed in order to register a "county.se" name, which made it complicated. Many who could not register directly under .se instead registered under .com or .nu. These rules were introduced in 1996. Before that there were unofficial rules that were even more restrictive, where private people and sports clubs could not register a domain.