The international popularity of Germany’s ccTLD .de continues to grow. There were 17,160,504 .de domains at the end of 2021 with 1,695,256 (9.88%) of these domains registered abroad, according to a DENIC report. Within one year, the number of international registrations has increased by 244,000, almost twice as much as in the previous year (2020: 128,000).
There were 35.93 million domain names registered within China as of the end of 2021, up more than 4.5 million in 12 months, from 31.36 million, according to the English version of the 49th Statistical Report on China’s Internet Development published in April.
ICANN last week announced locations for ICANN77 in 2023 (Washington D.C.) and ICANN82 in 2025 (Seattle) for those wishing to attend in person.
At DENIC’s ordinary General Assembly held Wednesday in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the members of DENIC eG voted on the composition of the Cooperative’s bodies through 2025. There were three new members voted onto the Supervisory Board, while members of the current Executive Board were all returned.
Afilias made the jaw dropping announcement to registrars this week that the .au wholesale, or registry fee, is being reduced by a whopping A$0.05 or 0.63%.
New registrations among European ccTLDs slowed during 2021, but so did deletions and registrar transfers, which meant growth was positive, according to the latest CENTRstats Global TLD Report released this week.
Norwegian-based cybersecurity company IQ Global AS must be good. This week they announced one of their long-term customers, the Swedish Internet Foundation, operator of the Swedish ccTLD .se, has bought a stake in the company, believed to be around 20%.
The .ZA Domain Name Authority (ZADNA) has published the draft .za registry and registrar licensing regulations. The draft provide details on the requirements to be met by registries and registrars to be licensed by the Authority, the steps to be taken when applying for the renewal of the license, and how to address contraventions of the license conditions.
DNS Abuse has become an issue the domain name industry is beginning to give the attention it deserves. In February 2021 attention to it was ramped up when the Public Interest Registry, the team behind .org, launched the DNS Abuse Institute. Prior to this the issue was bubbling along being discussed regularly at ICANN meetings and elsewhere.
The upcoming ICANN74 to be held both virtually and in-person in The Hague in June has some rather strange legalese when it comes to those attending regarding to COVID-19. There are some of the usual to be expected conditions such as to be vaccinated, wearing face masks and so on. But one that has stirred up a bit of a hornet’s nest is the requirement of attendees to sign a liability waiver [pdf].