European ccTLDs Outperform gTLDs For Domain Name Use: CENTR Report

The second of the two big global domain name registration reports, the quarterly CENTRstats Global TLD Report for Q4 2022, came out recently with its usual focus on its member European ccTLDs and how domain names across the continent are used. The other major report from Verisign, which I wrote on earlier this week, focusses on total domain registrations around the world. With 52 full and 8 associate members, CENTR’s members are responsible for over 70% of all registered country code top-level domain names worldwide, and 57% of the European domain name market, ccTLDs and gTLDs combined. .com, which accounts for 45.6% of all domain names registered globally, accounts for only a third (32%) in Europe while other gTLDs account for the remaining 11%.

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Global Domain Registrations Increase Incrementally to 354 Million: Verisign

The total number of domain names registered around the world increased incrementally in the first quarter of 2023, growing 1.0% or 3.5 million, which coincidentally was the same 1.0% and 3.5 million increase for the 12 months to the end of March, according to Verisign’s latest Domain Name Industry Brief.

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auDA Chair from 2000 to 2015 Tony Staley Dies

Highly regarded auDA Chair from 2000 to 2015 Tony Staley passed away this week, aged 83. Staley came to prominence as a “hard man” in Australia’s conservative Liberal Party, and as Minister for Posts and Telecommunications in late 1977 until he left politics at the general election in 1980. He was also Federal President of the Liberal Party from 1993 until 1999.

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Flying the flag for the technical community: CENTR provides feedback to the United Nations’ initiative on a Global Digital Compact

CENTR, the association which represents European country code top-level domain name registries (ccTLDs), such as .de for Germany or .no for Norway, has provided feedback to the United Nations’ initiative on a Global Digital Compact (GDC).

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What Impact Do Registry Fee Increases Have On .COM and .NET

Ever wondered what the impact of registry fee increases for a top-level domain have on registrations? Afnic’s Loïc Damilaville has recently published a paper attempting to analyse the impact Verisign’s increases in the registry fee for .com and .net have had.

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NZ Appoints New Domain Name Commissioner

New Zealand’s Domain Name Commission and InternetNZ have announced the appointment of Barbara Pearse as the new Domain Name Commissioner.

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auDA Launches RFT For .AU Backend Registry

auDA has released a Request for Tender (RFT) for a backend registry operator for the .au ccTLD and the 4.2 million domain names under management.

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Second Level .AU Domains Taking Off As COM.AU Records Quarterly Decline

From none in February, second level, or direct, .au registrations have taken off, reaching 716,278 as of 31 December 2022, or 17.2% of all .au domain names. The figures were part of auDA’s latest Quarterly Report for the fourth quarter of 2022.

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.IE Another ccTLD To Get the Post-COVID Blues

There was a slight decrease in .ie registrations in 2022 of 0.3%, taking total registrations to 329,265 domain names in the .ie database at the end of the year across the island of Ireland, including both the Republic and the North.

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Following a Pandemic Bump, .EU Gets A Slight Case of Post-Pandemic Blues

EURid’s stable of domain names, .eu, .ею and .ευ, are suffering some post-COVID pandemic blues. Over the last three years registrations for EURid’s three top-level domains jumped 95,953. But it’s a story of a pandemic bump, where many TLDs saw a jump in registrations as businesses that weren’t online went online, along with new ventures for existing businesses, and a slight decline following.

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