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.
Ever wondered what the impact of registry fee increases for a top-level domain have on registrations? Afnic’s Loïc Damilaville has recently published a paper attempting to analyse the impact Verisign’s increases in the registry fee for .com and .net have had.
From none in February, second level, or direct, .au registrations have taken off, reaching 716,278 as of 31 December 2022, or 17.2% of all .au domain names. The figures were part of auDA’s latest Quarterly Report for the fourth quarter of 2022.
There was a slight decrease in .ie registrations in 2022 of 0.3%, taking total registrations to 329,265 domain names in the .ie database at the end of the year across the island of Ireland, including both the Republic and the North.
EURid’s stable of domain names, .eu, .ею and .ευ, are suffering some post-COVID pandemic blues. Over the last three years registrations for EURid’s three top-level domains jumped 95,953. But it’s a story of a pandemic bump, where many TLDs saw a jump in registrations as businesses that weren’t online went online, along with new ventures for existing businesses, and a slight decline following.
A new gTLD hit the market this month with PIR launching .giving into General Availability on 20 January. .giving is aimed at fundraising and donating for not for profits for mission-driven organisations and philanthropic-minded individuals. The new gTLD is now publicly available for the first time to any mission-driven entity – regardless of non-profit status.