Global Domain Name and Internet Policy News
Over the past couple of weeks Nominet, the .uk registry, has announced it will be funding Internet Matters to carry out research into the growing problem of self-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) as well another programme to address the UK’s growing digital skills shortage and pull down the barriers many face trying to enter the rapidly-evolving workforce.
ICANN announced Thursday that Kigali, Rwanda, has been selected as the location for the ICANN80 Policy Forum, which will be held from 10 to 13 June 2024 at the Kigali Convention Centre. The last ICANN Public Meeting held in Africa was in June 2019.
The Gabonese government has taken back control of their .ga ccTLD from Freenom who have provided registry services for the past decade. ccTLDs managed by the Dutch backend registry provider Freenom are well known as havens for spammers and phishers, recently being sued by Facebook’s owner Meta for, as Krebs On Security reported, allegedly ignoring “abuse complaints about phishing websites while monetizing traffic to those abusive domains.”
DENIC released their annual update on the distribution of .de domain names both within Germany and throughout the world this week for 2022. Overall there was little change from 2021. Domain registrations in the former West Germany remained above that of the former East, with the divide increasing slightly, Berlin remained the city with the most domain names, Osnabruck the city, the state of Hamburg, and several districts in Bavaria remained those with the most domain names per capita.
Registrants of .fr domain names, and those in the overseas territory ccTLDs the French registry Afnic manage, will have a new and free dispute mediation process available to them from 3 July.
ICANN this week announced the 2023 ICANN DNS Symposium (IDS) will be held online and in person on 5 September, in Da Nang, Vietnam as well as the Regional Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) Global Stakeholder Engagement team’s plans for 2023 Domain Names Week in Buenos Aires.
The second of the two big global domain name registration reports, the quarterly CENTRstats Global TLD Report for Q4 2022, came out recently with its usual focus on its member European ccTLDs and how domain names across the continent are used. The other major report from Verisign, which I wrote on earlier this week, focusses on total domain registrations around the world. With 52 full and 8 associate members, CENTR’s members are responsible for over 70% of all registered country code top-level domain names worldwide, and 57% of the European domain name market, ccTLDs and gTLDs combined. .com, which accounts for 45.6% of all domain names registered globally, accounts for only a third (32%) in Europe while other gTLDs account for the remaining 11%.
Public Interest Registry, the .org registry, and the American Red Cross have joined together to curtail scammers seeking to take advantage of natural disasters and the Red Cross’ good name. It is the first time any registry operator has established a Trusted Notifier relationship with a major international humanitarian organisation like the American Red Cross.
The total number of domain names registered around the world increased incrementally in the first quarter of 2023, growing 1.0% or 3.5 million, which coincidentally was the same 1.0% and 3.5 million increase for the 12 months to the end of March, according to Verisign’s latest Domain Name Industry Brief.
Public Interest Registry has announced a call for nominations for the fifth annual .ORG Impact Awards. The Awards seek to promote the .org top-level domain as well as showcase some of the best work registrants are doing in the not-for-profit world. Plus in 2023, prize money has jumped dramatically and all finalists will be invited to attend the in-person award ceremony.