Our services
News
TLD February 2010 report
Welcome to E-Brand Services monthly update of news regarding updates to country code and generic Top Level Domains (ccTLDs and gTLDs).
.AU: In a battle over the domain name of the government minister responsible for telecommunications, the registrants of stephenconroy.com.au found it was helpful to read the rules prior to registration, particularly when the domain name is likely to be controversial.
.BG: In an online poll conducted by the Ministry of Transport, Information Technologies and Communications, Bulgarians said the characters "BG" and "BGR" were the most popular choices as Bulgaria’s proposed gTLD in Cyrillic. Two options were canvassed in the survey as “BG” in Cyrillic is visually very close to Brazil’s ccTLD .BR which could cause problems.
.COM: VeriSign announced that as of 1 July 2010 there will be an increase in the fees charged to registries for domain name fees for .COM and .NET as per its agreements with ICANN. The registry fee for .COM domain names will increase from $6.86 to $7.34 and the registry fee for .NET domain names will increase, from $4.23 to $4.65, increases of around seven per cent.
.CN: CNNIC, the registry for .CN domain names, announced changes to registration policies in recent months. The changes effectively limited registrations to businesses and effectively excluded private citizens from registering new domains. The new rules are meant to restrict online pornography however many view the changes as a means of clamping down on freedom of expression online. A review of the new rules is now taking place with the possibility of registrations by individuals becoming available again in the near future. CNNIC also required applicants to submit hard copy (paper) applications in addition to their online application as of December.
.CZ: CZ.NIC, the .CZ registry, decreased its annual registration fee for holding a .CZ domain as of 1 January 2010. The wholesale price for a domain registration will drop from the current CZK190 to CZK155, excl. VAT.
.EU: EURid, the .EU registry, now allows domain names to be registered using characters from all 23 official languages of the European Union. This means that registrants, for example, can use Greek or Cyrillic names like διαδίκτυο.eu or роуминг.eu. Other examples of what is allowed are the Polish ł, the Spanish ñ, the Danish ø, the French é and the Bulgarian л. During the first hour when registrations went live, 38,172 Internationalised Domain Names were successfully registered and ärzte.eu was the first IDN registered.
.FI: FICORA, managers of the .FI ccLTD, have reduced fees for the registration of .FI domain names. FICORA reduced the registry fees as of 4 January 2010 for the application, transfer or renewal. The new charges are €13 for one year, €36 for three years and €55 for five years. The number of .FI domain names registered increased by 20 per cent in 2009 to 225,625.
.FR: AFNIC, the .FR registry, announced .FR domain names will be available to French expatriates living outside of France in the first quarter of 2010, probably in March 2010. Under the changes any French national whose normal place of residence is abroad will be able to register a .FR domain name. 2009 saw the 1.5 millionth .FR domain name registered and registrations grew 25 per cent year-on-year.
.IE: Registrants of .IE domain names have been warned to be alert for scam letters from a company posing as an Irish internet registration body. The IE Domain Registry has warned that a company called Internet Register Ireland with an address in Germany has been sending letters asking recipients to sign a form to update their domain registration details at a cost of nearly €3,000 over three years.
.MADRID: The Spanish city of Madrid has entered the race for a new gTLD with a proposal to apply for .MADRID when ICANN begins accepting application for new gTLDs, probably later in 2010. .MADRID is aimed at helping developing the unique cultural aspects for the city.
.NL: SIDN, the .NL registry, have modified their Whois service with less information now available about each .NL registrant. The changes are designed to protect registrants’ privacy, as requested by the local internet community during the 2008 Domain Name Debate. Other changes to come about from the Domain Name Debate include registrars are no longer required to verify the identity of a prospective registrant before proceeding to register the relevant domain name. It is also now possible to reserve .NL domain names for a fee, meaning it is now possible to register a name without it being delegated. As of March 2010 there will also be a new Domain Name Registration system to make .NL registrations faster and simpler, and while the changes are of most benefit to registrars, registrants should see some slight benefits as well.
.NO: On 1 March 2010, Norid, the registry for .NO domain names, will increase the fees for registration and annual upkeep of .NO domains to NOK 60. The increase is caused by Norid’s need to lessen their deficit due to heightened demands for security and emergency preparedness. There will also be a new regular registration fee for domain transfers between holders (not between registrars) that will come into effect once a new registry system has been introduced.
.PARIS: The proposal to apply for a .PARIS gTLD when ICANN begins accepting applications for new gTLDs was officially launched online in December. The website, in French only,
.PT: The manager of the .PT ccTLD (FCCN - Foundation for National Scientific Computing) has enabled DNNSEC for the ccTLD. The DNSSEC standard consists of security extensions to the DNS protocol, thereby introducing security mechanisms that enable a number of the main problems in this area to be resolved.
.RU: There is now an English-language translation of the latest version of the terms and conditions for .RU domain name registration on the website of the Coordination Center for TLD RU as well as the terms and conditions for the Cyrllic domain .РФ.
.UK: Nominet, the .UK registry, who passed the eight-millionth .UK domain name registration milestone in November, have found UK consumers have a greater level of trust in .UK domain names with 77 per cent preferring to click on a .UK search result over a .COM result. As part of their efforts to keep the ccTLD more secure, Nominet have announced a number of changes including:
- changes to the acceptable use polices for our registrar systems in order to protect the stability of our domain name registration systems
- following discussion and approval by their Policy Advisory Body Nominet have released two new functions to provide registrars with the appropriate tools to take action against illegal online activity at a domain name level – a phishing feed and an investigation lock
- the phishing feed is a service that provides registrars with information about domain names on their account that are suspected of being involved in phishing
- the investigation lock locks domain names by removing the name from the zone file and preventing changes from being made. This means that any web site or email associated with the domain name will no longer be available and is only to be used when there is credible evidence of suspected illegal activity carried out using the domain name. In other .UK news, Nominet received an instruction from the Metropolitan Police’s Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) to take down around 1,200 CO.UK domain names in December that have been under investigation for criminal activity. The order was part of Operation Papworth where the PCeU was targeting websites run by organised criminal networks that purported to sell designer items - clothes, jewellery and electronic goods. Many of the sites involved supplied counterfeit goods or in some cases simply failed to supply any goods to the consumers who placed orders.