Registrations of .CN (China) domain names have plummeted to 3,379,441 active domain names as of 28 February, a decline of over ten million registrations in 14 months, according to statistics published by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) in the past week.The total number of registered domain names has declined from a peak of 13,459,133 as of 31 December 2009 when .CN was the number one country code Top Level Domain (CNNIC publishes registration statistics dated the end of each month).The decline has meant .CN, which was easily the number one ccTLD at its peak is now at best fifth and probably sixth in terms of total registrations.The dramatic reductions are the result of the end of promotions that lasted for much of 2008 and 2009 where domain names could be registered for a few cents and the introduction of restrictions on registrants.The restrictions on registrants were monitored by 600 temporary workers that were hired in February 2011 to check all .CN domain names for pornographic content and inaccurate records according to an IDG report at the time.In terms of total registrations, Germany’s ccTLD (.DE) is still the number one registry with 14,304,857 registrations after it regained the position from .CN. Following is:
- .UK (United Kingdom) with 9,194,231 registrations
- .NL (Netherlands) with 4,370,120 registrations
- .EU (European Union) with 3,383,275 registrations.
Russia’s ccTLD, .RU, is steadily increasing and has 3,250,627 active registrations meaning given the trends has probably overtaken .CN.All registrations are as of 2 April.Among the gTLDs, .COM remains number one with around 92 million registrations and .NET with around 13 million as of the end of December 2010, according to VeriSign’s Domain Name Industry Brief. There are approximately nine million .ORG domain names (March 2011) and 6.5 million .INFO domains (September 2010).