New Domains .Africa
Apr/120
The countdown for a huge tranche of new top level domain names is well underway* and the list of applied for domains will shortly be made public. One applicant is making their option known now at GlobalINET which is taking place this week in Geneva.
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- dotAfrica branding
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- dotAfrica
The .Africa top level domain application is a African Union sanctioned bid to establish a regional internet identity of Africa. Mohamed El Bashir, Chair of the dotAfrica steering committee describes the reason for the domain:
“Africa’s new top-level domain (dotAfrica) will be utilised as a mechanism to promote the development of Africa’s Internet services and ecosystem, and to showcase African pride, identity and know-how.”
The registry will be run by non-profit .za (South Africa) operator, UniForumSA, and they hope the new domain will stimulate the whole African domain name market. Pricing and availability (including any restrictions) will be announced closer to launch.
*The countdown hit a bump in the road in April due to a security issue with the online platform ICANN uses for the process.
ICANN opens new top level domain process
Jan/120
New gTLD Program Timeline
ICANN, the organisation in charge of the global domain name system, tonight opens the 3 month process for allowing applications for new top level domains. Top level domains are the ‘right of the dot’ extension on domain names – like .com, .uk, .xxx.
From midnight 12 Jan 2012 until April 12th 2012, anyone who can stump up $185,000 (£119,500) as a processing fee can apply for more or less any domain name extention they like*.
*ICANN has a multi-stakeholder consensus-based decision making process so there are plently of caveats, special cases and discounts for worthy causes.
You can find out more about the process at the newgTLD Icann website.
2020Media offers registration services for domain names worldwide and we welcome the changes ICANN has made. Although it’s likely many of the applications will be by big brands like Facebook and Microsoft for domains that won’t be available for the public, there will still be more choice in the coming months and years.
Secure your .uk domains
Nov/110
The .uk country code domain currently offers a single registration period – 2 years.
Starting from May of next year we will be offering the more common registration periods of 1 to 10 years for .co.uk, .org.uk and .me.uk domains. The allows users of .uk domains to have the same protection that they have in .com, .net and other top level domains.
.uk market
A recent report shows that .uk registrations grew by 10.5% over the past 12 months, bringing the total number of domains to 9.7 million by the end of September 2011. .uk also maintains its position as the world’s second largest country code registry after Germany’s .de.
The report also shows that the global market for domain names is healthy and growing with an increase of 9.5% this year, taking the total number of domains globally to 218 million, an increase of 19 million. Generic Top Level Domains now make up 60% of the market while 39% are country code Top Level Domains.
Domain Names – big numbers
Jul/100
There are now almost 200 million domain names registered, and we’ll certainly see the figure hit this milestone later this year. Compared to the first quarter of 2009, domain name registrations grew by 11 million, or 6 percent. Domain registrations seem to beat the economy no matter how its performing.
Total Domain Registrations q1 2010
A decline in .cn (china) registrations has resulted in a shift in the global leader board. The top ranking domain name extenstions for first quarter 2010 are now:
- .com
- .de (Germany)
- .net
- .cn (China)
- .uk (United Kingdom)
- .org
- .info
- .nl (Netherlands)
- .eu (European Union)
- .ru (Russia)
Country code domains (ccTLD) make up around 40% of the total registrations, with 76.3 million ccTLD registrations at the end of 1st quarter 2010.
Big Numbers
Verisign, the registry for .com and .net, handled an average number of DNS queries of 54 BILLION per DAY in the first part of 2010. Peaks were as high as 63.2 billion. The daily average has increased 43% since last year. Taken together with the slower rise in registrations, this suggest more internet users and more internet use by users. These mind-boggling numbers underline how important DNS is to our internet ecosystem. The fees for registering domains are spent many ways, but the most important two are the DNS and the database of who owns what (WHOIS). The registry for .com and .net has maintained 100 percent operation accuracy and stability for the past 12 years, making .com and .net domains amongst the most reliable in the world.
Security
Operational later this year is DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions). This behind-the-scenes add on to the DNS system will be offered by 2020Media to all its customers automatically as it is rolled out, so all our clients will be offered the ability to upgrade the security and stability of their domains.
About Domain Name Security Extensions (DNSSEC)
DNSSEC ensures that requests to visit an Internet web site reach the intended destination. DNSSEC protects against security vulnerabilities such as DNS cache poisoning, pharming and DNS redirection, commonly exploited to commit fraud and criminal attacks
Brusells ICANN Meeting
Jun/100
Promotional items from potential new gTLD applicants
2020Media’s Management team attended the recent ICANN (policy making body for gTLD domains and IP numbers) meeting in Brussels, Belgium. The week long conference is part of ICANN 3 annual worldwide meetings to engage with all internet stakeholders, from representatives of government to non-commercial internet using private individuals.
The main topics for discussion were the release of new gTLD (global top level domain names), and the .xxx domain. The last was rather a moot point as ICANN revealed on the last public discussion that they had taken a decision in principle to approve the application, subject to various caveats. After an independent review which found ICANN’s previous decisions was flawed, the board really had few options left.
New domains like .shop, .canon, .london provoked much more discussion, this time about the various guidelines and rules that ICANN has come up with. ICANN is seeking comment on it’s latest release of the applicant guidebook.
Of note to the technically minded was further steps along the road to secure DNS (DNSSEC) with more top level domain signings. The root zone itself is due to go live in July.
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