A few announcements from EURid, the top-level domain registry for .eu. First up, EURid has had to defer allowing EEA citizens to register .eu domain names.
This follows the announcement last month where the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) had reached an agreement that would extend the citizenship rule to EEA nationals.
InternetNZ has moved to make New Zealand’s internet a little safer with their announcement Tuesday their security product, Defenz DNS Firewall, is now consuming CERT NZ’s local threat feed.
Irish businesses have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by registering more domain names, with new registrations surging by a quarter (26%) in the first six months of 2020 and by over a half (56%) year-on-year, according to the latest .IE Domain Profile Report 2020, covering January to June.
InternetNZ is seeking to ‘Reimagine the future of .nz’ with the release of a weighty (should you print it) Options Report from their .nz Policy Advisory Panel. The report seeks feedback on .nz’s guiding principles (trusted, safe and secure, open and accessible and for all New Zealanders), whether it should be more engaged with Māori and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, should .nz eligibility be tightened, registrant privacy, conflicted domain names and much more.
Citizens of Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland will become eligible to register .eu, .ею and .ευ domain names regardless of their place of residence on 2 September, EURid announced this week. European Union citizens were granted the same eligibility in October 2019.
DNS.PT has been active in recent weeks with a few announcements about a new mobile phone app, conclusion of KSK and ZSK rollover and joining the Portuguese National Cybersecurity Centre anti-piracy campaign. They have also joined an initiative with the Portuguese National Cybersecurity Center (CNCS-PT) to promote a more secure Portuguese internet.
With NamesCon 360° now a virtual conference due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, the organisers have renamed their first-ever all-digital conference NamesCon Online, and moving it onto namescon.online.
Two bodies representing the interests of the domain name industry, the Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition) and The Domain Name Association (DNA) have announced they are merging to form the largest internet infrastructure advocacy group in North America.
Nominet has opened a consultation looking at how to implement a more transparent process for informing registrars and the wider public when expired .uk domain names will be made available for re-registration. They are also considering different methods for releasing highly desired expired domains which are contested (i.e. there are multiple parties seeking to register the domain name).
The Cameroon government has launched a promotional campaign to boost registrations and use of the country’s ccTLD .cm with a huge reduction in registration fees, according to a report in Business in Cameroon.