[news release] ICANN Monday announced plans for the Asia Pacific (APAC) region’s first Domain Name System (DNS) Forum. Jointly organised by ICANN and MYNIC Berhad, which is the Registry and Registrar for .MY, the inaugural APAC DNS Forum 2022 is scheduled to take place from 30 March to 1 April 2022.
Facebook and Google are planning two new undersea internet cables to connect South East Asia to North America.
ICANN and the Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA) today announced that the fifth edition of the Asia Pacific Internet Governance Academy (APIGA) will not be held in 2020.
The number of .vn domain names had passed the half million mark at the end of October according to the Viá»t Nam Internet Resources Report 2019 published last week with the total number as of 31 October being 501,027.
These 501,027 .vn domain names represents almost half (49.0%) of all domain names registered in the country according to the report, with 49.4% for legacy gTLDs and the remaining 1.6% for new gTLDs. The 49% figure for .vn in Viá»t Nam ranks the country somewhere in the middle of its peers in the region with .tw (Taiwan), .kz (Kazakhstan) and .uz (Uzbekistan) all having over 90% market share within the country while .th (Thailand) is less than 10% being the extremes of the 16 profiled.
There was also a reform of administrative procedures and supplementing regulations to resolve some practical situations such as electronic records, marking a major improvement in the management of .vn during the year.
The major cities of Ho Chi Minh and Ha Noi accounted for the majority of .vn domain name registrations with 189,336 and 174,171 respectively, while no other city or town managed more than 10,000.
There are 13 second level domains with .com.vn the largest with 34.56% of .vn domain names, .edu.vn (4.24%) and .net.vn (1.77%) being the only 2LDs with more than a 1% market share, while registrations at the second level accounted for 57.25%.
According to the report from Viá»t Nam Internet Network Information Center (VNNIC), the number of IPv4 addresses allocated to Viá»t Nam reached 16,001,024 at the end of October, ranking the south east Asian country second in the region, eighth in Asia and 29th globally.
Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC)âs statistics showed that the use of IPv6 for Viá»t Nam reaches approximately 40 per cent, ranking second in ASEAN and eighth globally with more than 21,000,000 IPv6 users by October.
In their annual report, VNNIC note a number of other activities for 2019 including signing a new partnership agreement with CCTLD.RU to strengthen the cooperation in management and ensure the security of national critical internet infrastructure system.
There are also 14 registrars for Viá»t Namâs country code top-level domain while registrants of 3,237 domain names have utilised VNNICâs Registry Lock and 170 domains are made more secure having DNSSEC enabled.
The Viá»t Nam Internet Resources Report 2019 published by the Viá»t Nam Internet Network Information Center (VNNIC) is available for download in Vietnamese only here [pdf].
ICANN has launched the APAC Space Survey, which will remain open until 1 August 2019, 23:59 UTC. Your input will help to make the APAC Space more relevant to the Asia Pacific (APAC) community, and improve the APAC Space as a platform that fosters community discussion.
If you are from the APAC region, we invite you to take the survey now: survey.clicktools.com/app/survey/go.jsp?iv=3pm87mkw6ubxy
The APAC Space is the APAC community’s “practice ground” for discussions on ICANN-related topics such as the ICANN policy development processes, ICANN reviews, and the Domain Name System (DNS) industry. The purpose is to foster a platform for our community to network, interact, and discuss relevant issues, as well as encourage participation in ICANN-related work.
A community-led initiative, the APAC Space is held bi-monthly via web conference, or face-to-face during ICANN Meetings. You can join the APAC Space mailing list by emailing subscribe@apacspace.asia.
For more information, please go to community.icann.org/display/GSEAPAC/APAC+Space.
ICANN‘s mission is to help ensure a stable, secure, and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet, you need to type an address â a name or a number â into your computer or other device. That address must be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN helps coordinate and support these unique identifiers across the world. ICANN was formed in 1998 as a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with a community of participants from all over the world.
This ICANN announcement was sourced from: https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2019-07-15-en
IPv6 penetration grew by a quarter (25.85%) in 2018 to take Viet Namâs ccTLD to 13th place globally for IPv6 adoption while domain names under management reached 465,890, an increase of 8.3% compared to the end of 2017. Since 2011, .vn has been one of top 10 ccTLDs for growth in the Asia Pacific.
The growth in registrations in 2018 came on the back of a new registration procedure and management system for .vn that came into effect in September 2018. The simplified registration process means itâs much easier for to register domain names in Viet Namâs country code top level domain but still comply with Vietnamese regulations and laws.
The growth in IPv6 deployment of 25.85% means there are now more than 14 million IPv6 users including 6.5 million of FTTH subscribers and 3.1 million of mobile users. Viet Nam was ranked the second place in ASEAN, the 6th place in Asia Pacific and 13th place globally for the highest IPv6 adoption rate.
2018 also saw VNNIC, the .vn ccTLD registry, continuously improve the stable connection, security and safety for the national DNS .VN system and other critical information infrastructures operated by VNNIC. DNSSEC was extended to all national DNS servers and the national .vn DNS system is connected with DNS ROOT and international DNS systems.
By the end of 2018, the Viet Nam National Internet eXchange (VNIX) system had 20 members peering over exchange points in Ha Noi city, Da Nang city and Ho Chi Minh city with the total connection bandwidth reaching 269 Gbps. 13 of VNIX members deployed dual-stack network. Among them, CMCTI, VNPTNET and Viettel are 3 ISPs having the highest amount of traffic over VNIX which are 51GB, 50GB and 42GB respectively which increased by about 34% compared to their traffic over VNIX in 2017.
On 7 August, VNNIC maintained and extended the validity of the ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification standard within the scope of operation and management of essential network systems in Viet Nam including the national DNS .VN system, the Internet eXchange system and Internet data centers (IDCs) in Ha Noi city, Da Nang city and Ho Chi Minh city.
In 2019, VNNIC plans include accomplish the Viet Nam National IPv6 Action Plan, continuously promote the use of internet resources in Viet Nam, and strengthen the security of critical information infrastructures including the national DNS .vn and VNIX system, improve the effectiveness of internet resources management policy and develop regulations for the auction of one and two-character .vn domain names and to innovate VNIX operating system following international standards.
Recently the .asia top level domain made a number of changes to eligibility, the main one being to enable anyone, anywhere with an interest in Asia to register a .asia domain name. As the Asian region expands, and Asian communities around the world grow and diversify, there are some great opportunities ahead. There are challenges ahead for .asia, as with any top level domain, but their experiences can also be instructive. Recently Leona Chen-Birkner, Vice President of Registrar Relations for DotAsia Organisation, sat down with Domain Pulse to discuss DotAsia’s experiences, and what the future looks like.
Domain Pulse: The recent liberalisation of eligibility for .asia means anyone, anywhere can register a domain and has made .asia much more available. Have you seen any changes in domain registrations?
Leona Chen-Birkner: We’re definitely seeing an increase in domain registrations from outside the region. Although the growth is not as obvious when you look at the overall creates since July. One reason for this is due to a general market downturn for registrations coming from China.
DP: And what was the impetus for the changes?
LCB: It signals to the world that .Asia is open for business and that your business can rise with the rapidly growing Asia market place.
As included in our original agreement with ICANN, it has always been DotAsia’s goal from the start to offer .Asia domains to anyone who is interested in Asia, regardless of they are physically located within the region or not. The latest changes completes that vision.
DP: Most importantly, why should a brand or person register a .Asia domain name?
LCB: I get asked this question a lot, and to me it’s very simple, if you want to gain an Asian audience, you should get a .Asia domain; if your business is about Asia, it makes good sense to get a .Asia domain.
Even if you already have another domain name for your storefront, it’s still a good idea to register YourName.asia and forward it to your social media page. Print it on your business card so you’re not just featuring a Facebook logo. Make it part of your social media strategy, make it easier for others to connect with you.
DP: What’s the ratio of business and brands to individuals registering .asia domain names?
LCB: From the .Asia domain data we have come across, a large number of website are developed by Small to medium size businesses, we also see a fair number of brands, PR firms and media outlets.
In terms of personal websites using .Asia domains, we do see .Asia domains used by Asia pop stars and personalities that want to reach audiences in Korea, Greater China and Japan. Pop bands like Code-V (code-v.asia), or CrossGene (crossgene.asia) are good examples. As well as Livenation.Asia that offers concert tickets from Bruno Mars to Kpop group for fans across Asia.
Based on our recent research, we have identified 5 personas that exemplifies the use of .Asia domains:
DP: You ran a major discounted promotion in 2013 that saw a huge growth in registrations, but then many of these didn’t renew. And it’s a trend that’s been mirrored in other TLDs – ccTLDs, legacy gTLDs and new gTLDs. Going forward, would you run promotions and what would you change? If anything!
LCB: Yes, we ran a comparatively price aggressive promotion in 2013 that led to considerable growth within a very short time. We had full expectation of low renewal rates, but we also understood low barrier cost for the registrant is useful for driving demand in some markets where price sensitivity is high. We did put more focus on preparing for the large amount of abusive/potentially abusive domains that came through. And we have had a great record of mitigating abuse, our anti-abuse team stepped in and suspended numerous domains that were determined to be a threat.
There is always the ebb and flow of market trends and demands to consider, so yes we would run price aggressive promos again. Robust usage is most important to DotAsia, and we feel that meaningful discounts for registrars in some markets are useful to spark stronger motivation to push .Asia out to end customers.
As for change, we are constantly exploring new ways to promote the .Asia extension. We are even more committed than ever to promote real usage. On the organisation side, as a not-for-profit organisation, we are investing in educating the next generation of youth coming online and familiarising them with the .Asia opportunity. In alignment with our latest call to #RiseWithAsia, we are focusing our efforts to support Asian youths setting out, starting new things, to change the world.
DP: DotAsia has an altruistic side supporting a number of issues and events. So what is DotAsia supporting?
LCB: We are big on supporting initiatives involving youth, and the next generation of leaders in Internet Governance from the Asia Pacific. Just last month DotAsia was involved in the Asia Pacific Internet Governance Academy (APIGA) conference in Korea, to help educate and empower university students and young professionals in Internet Governance issues. This is also what we do through our flagship program NetMission Ambassadors Program, where we engage and collaborate with young minds dedicating our efforts in supporting digital inclusion projects and expose young leaders to Internet policies and collaboration opportunities in Asia.
DP: Has the launch of new gTLDs had any noticeable impact on .asia?
LCB: The 3 most noticeable impacts have been:
We are seeing some impact on registration numbers, especially since we were, prior to July 15, a comparatively restrictive TLD.
On the flip side, we are also seeing an increase in usage in the past couple of years of .Asia domains. And I think this is because of the broadening exposure of domain names to the general market. Businesses and their customers often see their .Asia domain as a trustworthy source of that brand and their place of business.
DP: And finally, Asia is home to some of the world’s fastest growing economies which means there’s a huge potential, so what does the future look like for .asia?
LCB: If I could look into a crystal ball I would say that .Asia domains will continue to grow organically and flourish within the region, especially from South East Asia where overall economic performances are progressing quickly in part due to Government led investments and reform that favoured Startups.
I think we will continue to see more Asia-based businesses, especially those operating online, to go beyond their border to neighboring countries where they share similar lifestyles or cultures. I see .Asia domains resonating and elevating this kind of expansion.
With the liberalisation of .Asia registrations, we hope to see more businesses from outside the region taking advantage of .Asia domains that echo their business or audience. I can also see .Asia domains being used to market to Asian Americans. Difference in ethnicity aside, I think the .Asia extension speaks to a shared immigrant culture, a collection of rich yet diverse heritage and and a strong Pan-Asian pride.
As a consumer segment, the Asian-Americans have accumulated substantial wealth. Their purchasing power is currently ranked third largest of all multicultural groups in the US, at $825 billion that’s 4x the GDP of Portugal. I hope to see brands in the West use .Asia domains to promote to Asian communities with in-language and cultural nuanced advertising message along side English.
To register a .asia domain name, check out Asia Registry here.
âWhois privacy services by cybersquatters can frustrate and sometimes delay the resolution of a domain dispute but it canât prevent the inevitable,â say FairWinds Partners in a recent blog posting. But they do result in âbrand owner[s] having to incur the expense of filing a UDRP or URS complaint.â
A London police unit, the City of London Police’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU), has decided that suspending pirate domain names is no longer a priority, according to TorrentFreak. The report says that after ICANN ruled that registrars don’t have to suspend domain names without a valid court order, the police have decided to put more emphasis on other enforcement tactics.â
The International Olympic Committee is very protective of its trademarks and litigious when it comes to those it believes to protecting those marks. So now the IOC and the U.S. Olympic Committee have sued a businessman on trademark charges, claiming he’s stockpiled more than 1,000 domain names of potential Olympic host cities and years to raise money, according to Courthhouse News Service.
However Stephen P. Frayne Jr. has âfiled a complaint in the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, averring that he acquired the domain name solely to establish a bona fide noncommercial forum for an ‘open and honest discussion’ about the Olympic Games, the complaint states.â
Use of IPv6 in the Asia Pacific is growing. According to recent stats from APNIC Labs, there are some encouraging signs across the region, with the United States (26.5%), Peru (15.5%), Japan (15.7%), Malaysia (10.2%) and Singapore (9.6%) all among the top 15 economies for IPv6 end-user adoption. In the post on the APNIC blog, it notes that âglobally, IPv6 adoption has seen a 100% increase in the last 12 months. Although this only represents 4.9% of total users there is reason to be optimistic about the overall trend.â
Neustar is expanding its wings. In 2015 it has acquired Bombora, the 
registry for the .au and .om ccTLDs, and assets owned by Transaction Network Services, to add to, among other acquisitions, .CO Internet in 2014. And just last week it acquired MarketShare Partners, LLC, a fast-growing marketing analytics technology provider to major brands, for $450 million. The purchase price is effectively reduced to approximately $390 million after taking into account tax benefits resulting from the transaction.
[news release] ICANN announced today (7/10) that it has moved its APAC hub to a new office, located in the South Beach Tower in the Esplanade area. The move is in line with ICANN‘s expanded presence in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.
At the official opening ceremony today, ICANN‘s Chief Operating Officer Susanna Wong Bennett said, “Expanding our APAC Hub is key to ICANN‘s strategic focus and commitment to globalisation. This positions ICANN for long-term stability as we continue our work of maintaining a secure, stable and interoperable Internet and cements the vision of having three global hubs to serve the global community.”
The ICANN APAC Hub was established in Singapore in August 2013 to better serve the stakeholders in this region and recently celebrated its second anniversary.
“We knew from the start that the APAC Hub had to play catch-up with the fast-evolving Internet user demographic in the region. To address the needs of the region, we quintupled our staff headcount over the past two years so that we are now able to provide a wide range of services,” said Kuek Yu-Chuang, Vice President and Managing Director for ICANN Asia Pacific.
ICANN currently has a 30-strong staff team in the region, providing services such as registry and registrar support, stakeholder engagement, contractual compliance, security capacity building, communications and customer service, as well as support functions such as operations, IT, legal, finance and human resources.
The new Singapore office also houses facilities to conduct community meetings and trainings.
# # #
ICANN‘s mission is to ensure a stable, secure and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet you have to type an address into your computer – a name or a number. That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN coordinates these unique identifiers across the world. Without that coordination we wouldn’t have one global Internet. ICANN was formed in 1998. It is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet’s unique identifiers. ICANN doesn’t control content on the Internet. It cannot stop spam and it doesn’t deal with access to the Internet. But through its coordination role of the Internet’s naming system, it does have an important impact on the expansion and evolution of the Internet. For more information please visit: www.icann.org.
This ICANN news release was sourced from:
https://www.icann.org/resources/press-material/release-2015-10-07-en
Partnership aims to strengthen capabilities of ccTLDs, and increase multi-stakeholder participation in the global Internet policymaking process
[news release] ICANN and the Asia Pacific Top Level Domain (APTLD) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to forge an alliance to foster and promote regional collaboration.
Under the cooperative agreement, ICANN and APTLD will work together to coordinate and collaborate on complementary activities within the Asia Pacific (APAC) region to strengthen the capacity and capability of country code Top Level Domain operators (ccTLDs) in the region; promote and encourage APTLD members’ and regional stakeholders’ participation and involvement in ICANN, and foster a network of regional stakeholders and decision makers that could contribute to ICANN‘s policy development, and more broadly, global Internet policymaking.
“This collaboration marks another milestone in ICANN‘s globalization efforts after we established our ICANN Asia Pacific Hub in Singapore,” said Fadi Chehadé, ICANN President and Chief Executive Officer.
APTLD Chairman, Lim Choon Sai and Fadi Chehadé signed the MOU at ICANN‘s 52nd Public Meeting in Singapore, witnessed by members of the APTLD Board.
“APTLD appreciates ICANN‘s globalization efforts and the ICANN Asia Pacific Hub’s work in engaging with the APAC community. As a region, we need to work together to strengthen the capacity of our operational functions, as well as contribute to ICANN‘s policy making,” said Lim Choon Sai. “As such, we hope to work with key stakeholders in each sub-region of the Asia Pacific region, including ccTLD registries and other concerned entities in our collaboration activities.”
Kuek Yu-Chuang, ICANN‘s Vice President and Managing Director for ICANN Asia Pacific said that the APTLD meets regularly and plays a key role in fostering a network amongst the ccTLDs and regional organizations in the region.
“We are very excited to collaborate with a key regional partner such as the APTLD. Our cooperation will definitely help to strengthen regional collaboration. From ICANN, we hope to be able to contribute by adding our expertise to help our APAC ccTLDs build their operational capacity, including areas such as DNS network operations, DNS Security, Internet Infrastructure Development etc. The gathering of ccTLDs and other key stakeholders at APTLD also provides a good platform for us to update on and discuss ICANN issues from a regional perspective,” he added.