Tag Archives: Bulgaria

Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registrars, Domain Name Registry

Register.BG To Release 2 Character Domains Via Secret Auction in 2018

The Bulgarian ccTLD operator, Register.BG, has announced they will be releasing 2-character domain names in Latin script in 2018 via a secret auction. Participants are required to submit a bid for their desired domain names in a sealed envelope with the first round of bidding closing on 6 February.

Currently domain names under the Bulgarian country code top level domain must be a minimum of 3 characters and contain letters, numbers or the “-“ symbol.

The rules and procedures for registration of the 2-character domain names are described in the following terms and conditions: 5.2.4, T. 5.2.5, T. 5.2.6. and 7.5, which are available here in Bulgarian only. But it appears the silent auction only applies to the domain names in the following formats: LN.bg, NL.bg and NN.bg (L = letter and N = number). There are no specific eligibility requirements for the domain names being released apart from the general rules applying to .bg domain names, and the standard renewal fees will apply. The reserve price for all domain names I s€5,000.

Any unregistered 2-character domain names remaining shall be auctioned under the same conditions at 3 monthly intervals.

Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registrars, Domain Name Registry, ICANN and Governance, New gTLDs

Daily Wrap: .COM/.NET Keywords in June, Cyrillic Domains in Bulgaria and Two-Character Country Codes May Become Available In gTLDs

Verisign logoThe recent referendum in the United Kingdom that saw the people vote to leave the European Union has seen “Brexit” join the list of top ten keywords for .com, according to a blog post on the Verisign website.

The list of top ten keywords in .com domain names registered in June were worlds, casino, visit, plastic, Brexit, listings, popup, physical, hearing and degree. For .net the list was completely different. The top ten keywords in .net domain names were pass, luxury, wall, hearing, rehab, Vietnam, aids, snap, tool and York.

The first domain name using the .бг top level domain, in Cyrillic characters, has gone live, according to a Novinite report. The TLD was somewhat controversial because of its similarity to Brazil’s ccTLD .br. The first domain to go live was Имена.бг (“names”).

The Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications will be setting up a list of state institutions and municipalities, like софия.бг (the name of the capital Sofia in Cyrillic) or президент.бг. (“president.bg”) to avoid any registrations that could potentially tarnish these institutions’ reputation the report notes. Following this process registrations for .бг will commence with priority given to trademarks and company names and other applicants whose name request is “well-founded”.

ICANN is proposing to introduce process for gTLD registry operators to release what would often be valuable two-character domains. If adopted it would see “all gTLD Registry Operators who implement these measures would be authorised to release all reserved two-letter second-level domains.”

If the proposal goes ahead, before they can be publicly released registry operators would have to allow a 30 day period where any country codes “will be made exclusively available to the applicable country-code manager or government.”

“The new proposal, introduced in an attempt to settle a long-running debate about the most appropriate way to enable the release of two-character strings, appears to add a ‘buy it or lose it’ component to existing policy,” according to Domain Incite.

“Under the base New gTLD Registry Agreement, all two-character domains were initially reserved.

“Then, in late 2014, ICANN said registries could release all letter-number, number-letter and number-number combinations.”

ICANN and Governance

ICANN: IDN ccTLD Request from Bulgaria Successfully Passes String Evaluation

ICANN logoICANN is pleased to announce the successful evaluation of the proposed IDN ccTLD string for Bulgaria.

Details of the successful evaluation are provided here: www.icann.org/en/resources/idn/fast-track/string-evaluation-completion

The Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) ccTLD Fast Track Process was approved by the ICANN Board at its annual meeting in Seoul, South Korea on 30 October 2009. First requests were received starting 16 November 2009. The process enables countries and territories to submit requests to ICANN for IDN ccTLDs, representing their respective country or territory names in scripts other than Latin. IDN ccTLD requesters must fulfill a number of requirements:

  • The script used to represent the IDN ccTLDs must be non-Latin;
  • The languages used to express the IDN ccTLDs must be official in the corresponding country or territory; and
  • A specific set of technical requirements must be met.

The request and evaluation processes entail three steps:

  • Preparation (by the requester in the country / territory): Community consensus is built for which IDN ccTLD to apply for, how it is run, and which organization will be running it, along with preparing and gathering all the required supporting documentation. Requests are submitted through an online system together with additional material supporting the process at forms.icann.org/idn/apply.php
  • String Evaluation: Requests are evaluated in accordance with the technical and linguistic requirements for the IDN ccTLD string(s) criteria described above.
  • String Delegation: Requests successfully meeting string evaluation criteria are eligible to apply for delegation following the same ICANN IANA process as is used for ASCII based ccTLDs. Requesters submit string delegation requests to IANA root zone management: root-mgmt@iana.org.

With this announcement, requests from a total of 39 countries/territories have successfully passed through the String Evaluation stage. Of these, 33 countries/territories (represented by 43 IDN ccTLDs) are delegated in the DNS root zone, with the remainder either readying to apply, or actively applying for delegation of the string. Up-to-date information about the IDN Fast Track Program will continue to be provided on the Fast Track Process web page at https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/fast-track-2012-02-25-en.

ICANN will continue to accept new string evaluation requests for non-Latin country-code top-level domains for countries and territories that meet the Fast Track Process requirements. Please email idncctldrequest@icann.org for any inquiries for participation.

This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2016-03-01-en

ICANN and Governance, New gTLDs

ICANN Boss Advises Bulgarians Time To Choose Another Cyrillic IDN

In an interview with the Bulgarian Novinite.com upon his visit to the capital, Sofia, Rod Beckstrom has advised Bulgarians that are continuing to argue for the .бг Cyrillic internationalised domain name they should think about choosing another Cyrillic domain.The visit to Bulgaria was intended to promote the new generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) programme to the Bulgarian internet community, government leadership, civil society, and companies in a short and busy 24 hours.Responding to a question as to whether Bulgaria should continue to push for .бг, ICANN’s CEO and president said he “would advise the Bulgarians to go for something else.” He went on to say “the job of ICANN … is to implement the policies that are developed by the global communities. Those communities did not allow the initial application to go through because of potential visual confusion. So I think the Bulgarians can go back and they can choose what they want to apply for.”The Bulgarians can apply for a three-character name, they can apply for .българия in Cyrillic, it’s really up to the local community.”It’s great to see how much the local community cares; the Bulgarian government has been involved in our policy-making and what we call the Government Advisory Committee but we are hoping that even more people from Bulgaria – users and companies – will get involved in ICANN to help shape the policies in the future that they want to see.”Beckstrom outlined three options for Bulgaria in its desire for a Cyrillic IDN, these being “to wait for the policies to change and to participate in changing policies, and to apply again, … to come up with another string … whether it’s three characters, or .българия in full or something … to abandon the concept and move on to other ideas – some new gTLD, for example.”The full interview with Rod Beckstrom is available at www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=134438.

Cybersecurity, Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registrars, Domain Name Registry, New gTLDs

Bulgaria To Try Again for Cyrillic TLD

Bulgaria is considering applying again for the .бг Cyrillic Top Level Domain Name, which has already been rejected by ICANN.

While fast track application procedures have been exhausted, the country”s newly appointed Deputy Minister of Transport, Information Technologies and Communications, Valeri Borisov says the country may try for a longer application procedure Novinite, the Sofia News Agency, reported. Presumably this would be through the new generic TLD process in early 2012.

The Novinite report gives a potted history of the application process, saying that “in March 2011, ICANN technically rejected Bulgaria”s second attempt to register a domain name in Cyrillic with a “.бг” suffix, saying the country had slim chances for that. ICANN had already refused to accept Bulgaria”s proposal for a domain name in Cyrillic with a “бг” suffix in May 2010, citing the similarity with Brazil”s domain name with a “.br” suffix as the reason for the rejection.”