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.
The first quarter of 2020 saw a decrease in the number of botnet Command & Controllers (C&Cs) tracked and listed by the Spamhaus research team, but in the second quarter they were back to levels typically seen in 2019.
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.
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 ailing Webcentral Group, which has seen its stockmarket value plummet on the Australian Stock Exchange over the last 16 months, has been swallowed up by the Web.com Group which sees the end of Australian ownership of the country’s first domain name registrar, Melbourne IT.
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.
The Brazilian ccTLD registry manager, NIC.br, has announced they will be adding 12 new second level domains on 20 July with domain names registered in these 2LDs to be priced at R$40 per year, around US$7.60.