Global Domain Name and Internet Policy News
The surge in online purchases seen since the beginning of the pandemic also means Canadians are more exposed to scams popping up online. To help combat the growth in scams CIRA, the .CA registry, announce a partnership with ScamAdviser, a global leader in anti-scam technology, to integrate protection against fraudulent websites into CIRA Canadian Shield. This added layer of protection will safeguard Canadians’ families against online scams and fraudulent websites.
The .shop new gTLD announced in mid-July it passed the one million registrations mark, one of only six new gTLD’s that has surpassed the milestone. Aimed at online businesses/ecommerce, it launched in late September 2016 and took 15 months to reach the half million milestone and just over 3.5 years to reach the million.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought about huge changes in the world, mostly negative, but there were some positives and areas of growth. One of these was evidence many businesses went online that weren’t online before, and new business ideas were developed. For Canada’s .ca, the registry released data last week that suggests more Canadians are choosing a .ca domain name for their websites more than ever before with the growth rate nearly tripling since last year, from 0.35% in March 2020 to 0.99% in March 2021. As of the end of March 2021 there were 3,106,723 .ca domain names registered, up from 2,867,598 a year earlier. Today there are 3,157,305 .ca domain names registered.
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) launched a call Tuesday for applications for projects to improve internet access in Canada. Over C$1 million in grants will be awarded to community groups and researchers working on infrastructure, cybersecurity, digital literacy and community leadership projects – with preference given to those that benefit students, as well as northern, rural, and Indigenous communities.
It has taken 32 years since the first .ca domain was registered, and 20 years to the day since ICANN delegated the .ca domain registry to CIRA, but Tuesday the organisation announced there are now more than 3 million .ca domains under management.
Ireland’s ccTLD became a little bit Canadian this week as the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) now provides backend registry services to .IE, the manager of… .ie… through its CIRA Registry Platform.
As Canadian businesses pivot to digital amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is working with Digital Main Street and Google Canada to offer .CA domain names to the thousands of Canadian small businesses accessing the ShopHERE powered by Google programme.
CIRA has brought back the .CA Domain Squad, and once again they’re determined to help Canadian businesses succeed online. The .CA Domain Squad made its debut last year and was a comical attempt to get Canadians to register more .ca domain names. The latest advertising campaign has its broadcast debut with four commercials on 14 September.
CIRA, the .ca registry, has filed an intervention in a Canadian pirate site blocking appeal, along with a Canadian public interest technology law clinic, according to a report in TorrentFreak this week.
May was the biggest month ever for .ca domain name registrations with 54,129 domain names registered, an increase of 38 percent over May 2019 when 39,319 were registered according to data from the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) released today. It was the biggest single month for .ca registrations since CIRA was founded in 1998.