Africa lags behind other regions when it comes to the size of domain registrations, with the biggest registry being .za with 400,000 registrations, said communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri speaking at the African Top-Level Domains conference this week reports the South African IT Web.
ccTLD registries fast-track economic development and social participation of citizens, as they attract more consumers to use the Internet Matsepe-Casaburri said. Of the worldâs domain registrations, she said Africaâs contribution was insignificant with most African ccTLD registries having less than 10,000 registrations. This is unlikely to drive economic development and social participation of citizens in those countries, she explained.
The low rate of ccTLD registrations in Africa was attributed âto a lack of knowledge and awareness of the Internet domain name registrations and the role they can play in economic and social development. âMost people do not understand what it means to utilise the country code top level domains,ââ Matsepe-Casaburri said.
âBusinesses and individuals also prefer to use generic top-level domains like .com and .biz, because they believe it gives them more credibility, she noted.â
The full IT Web article is available at www.itweb.co.za/sections/internet/2008/0804091038.asp.