The number of .fr domain names grew 5.8% in 2021 to end the year with 3,882,448 to continue the ccTLD’s boost during the COVID pandemic, according to Afnic’s Report of .FR in 2021 released last week. This compares to 3,670,372 .fr domain names registered at the end of 2020 when growth was 7.0%. In pre-pandemic times, 2019, growth was 3.7%.
DNS Abuse has become an issue the domain name industry is beginning to give the attention it deserves. In February 2021 attention to it was ramped up when the Public Interest Registry, the team behind .org, launched the DNS Abuse Institute. Prior to this the issue was bubbling along being discussed regularly at ICANN meetings and elsewhere.
After total domain name registrations decreased by 2.7 million, or 0.7%, to 364.6 million in the third quarter of 2021, they were back on the up in the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter of 2021 closed with 341.7 million domains across all TLDs, an increase of 3.3 million domain name registrations, or 1.0%, compared to the third quarter of 2021 according to Verisign’s latest Domain Name Industry Brief. Domain name registrations have increased by 1.6 million, or 0.5%, year over year.
After being twice-delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Domain Pulse is back and will take place as a face-to-face event on 17 and 18 May. The conference will be hosted by DENIC at the historical plenary chamber of the German Parliament in Bonn. For two days, there will be discussions on the trends and developments in the domain name industry.
It’s official. After being announced in December, GoDaddy Registry is now officially the new backend registry operator for the Tuvaluan ccTLD .TV. This week the contract was officially memorialised in a ceremony held at the Dubai Expo 2020.
It’s not been a good week for auDA, the .au policy and regulatory body, and their backend registry provider Afilias. First on Tuesday there was a security incident that auDA claims saw “a small number of domains” disappear for half an hour. Then today with the launch of second level (or .au direct) registrations, there has been another stuff up that sees all new second level/direct registrations having to be manually entered after registration with no timeframe given for a resolution.
March 24 is a big day for .au domain names. It’s the day auDA is launching second level .au domain names. It comes on the back of a security outage that reportedly saw around 15,000 (out of 3.4 million) .au domain names out for 30 minutes on 22 March. But when it comes to second level domains, what’s the point? It comes on the back of me pondering various websites around the world setup to highlight issues with Russia’s current war against and invasion of Ukraine. Under .au until tomorrow I couldn’t set up a website using a .au domain name to serve as information, for example, unless I was part of an organisation that is an official business. That’s how ridiculous the previous eligibility requirements were for .au.
This week Australia’s Internet Governance Forum event, NetThing, is happening virtually with a host of discussions and presentations covering Australia’s critical infrastructure, internet standards, vaccine passports and digital rights, the internet as an essential service, tech and environmental sustainability, misinformation and disinformation, DNS abuse, trusted digital platforms, blockchain, protecting at risk voices, will technology save the planet, adult content online and mass surveillance and democracy. The theme for the 2021 NetThing Forum is “Building Bridges.”
DNS Belgium have published an interview with a student whose Master’s thesis was on detecting fake web shops in the .be domain with machine learning.
EURid has been selected to run the .eu registry for another five years, meaning they will manage the top-level domain until 2027 which will see them reach 20 years of managing .eu.