Tag Archives: Coordination Center for TLD .RU

Domain Name Registry, ICANN and Governance

ICANN: The Eastern European DNS Forum Comes to Moscow

Today [19 Nov], ICANN announced that the third Eastern European Domain Name System Forum (EEDNSF) will take place from 4-5 December 2018, in Moscow, Russia, following the success of the first edition in Kiev, Ukraine (2016), and the second one in Minsk, Belarus (2017). The event is jointly organized by ICANN and the Coordination Center for National Domains .RU/.РФ (cctld.ru).

This event is part of ICANN‘s regional outreach efforts to raise awareness on issues related to the Domain Name System (DNS), and collaborate with stakeholders on key areas. It comes as a continuation of the earlier engagement efforts to bring global discussions on the DNS to the regional level, and uncover the contexts surrounding the regional perspectives.

Sessions on the first day will cover technical topics. The second day will be devoted to policy-related discussions. The Forum’s topics include:

  • The current state and evolution of the Root Server System
  • Universal Acceptance
  • Internationalized Domain Names
  • Artificial Intelligence and the DNS
  • DNS abuse
  • Transborder legislative issues affecting the DNS

ICANN‘s Chief Technology Officer David Conrad, and Chief Security, Stability and Resiliency Officer John Crain will be at the event participating in discussions related to the evolution and security of the DNS, and the current challenges faced. Other regional and global actors of the DNS industry will also attend the forum, contributing to the sessions with their experiences and areas of expertise.

Register here and visit the EEDNSF website for more information. You can track the event on social media with the hashtag #EEDNSF.

Remote participation will be available for those interested in participating, but unable to attend in-person.

This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2018-11-19-en

Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registrars, Domain Name Registry

.RU/.РФ Domains Registry Fee Increasing By 71% In July

RU Coordination Center logoThe registry fee for .RU and .РФ domain names is increasing to 120 rubles from the current 70 rubles, an increase of 71%, the registry, the Coordination Center for TLD RU, announced, the first increase in 10 years.

The increase applies to registration and renewals from 1 July and was approved at a meeting of the Council of the Coordination Center for TLD .ru/.рф on 27 February. This increase, the CCTLDRU says, comes as no surprise to most people who are involved in this market: there has been talk about the need to raise prices since 2012. The cost of domain name registration and renewal in the .RU domain has not changed since 2007. The cost of the domain name registration and renewal in .РФ in 2011 equalled the cost in the .RU.

There are currently 5.523 million .ru domains and 901,000 .рф domains under management.

A survey by the CCTLDRU found that there would not be any serious decrease in the number of registered domain names. The price increase will mostly affect small low-margin registrars that provide services to domain investors.

Council members from the registrar community said that the price increase would improve the working conditions of the registrars and contribute to holding major marketing programs to promote the Russian national domains .RU and .РФ, as well as modernizing the infrastructure and developing the registration system.

Andrei Vorobyov spoke about the control of prices set by registrars: “Together with the Regional Public Center for Internet Technologies, we are launching a public control mechanism to monitor prices for domain names. It is very important to prevent our registrars, who have doubled retail prices in the past few years, from passing this negligible (as compared to the final price) increase to their clients.”

The council also approved the Regulation on the Stabilization Fund of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ and decided to allocate part of the undistributed profits of the past years to its creation. The fund will create financial reserves for emergency situations that can affect the stable and safe operation of the Russian domain space. The council also discussed and approved decisions on other issues.

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

.РФ Celebrates Sixth Anniversary

RU Coordination Center logo[news release] Six years ago, on May 12, 2010, a new national Cyrillic domain .РФ was assigned to Russia. Today .РФ is the most successful IDN domain and the largest Cyrillic domain area in the world.

Currently, some 882,488 domain names are registered in .РФ, which brings it to the top place among non-Latin domains and 17th place among European national domains. Thirty-five accredited registrars are responsible for assigning registration in the domain area.

Some 86% of .РФ domain names have been assigned. Thirty percent of domain names are used for websites, while 13% second-level domains are used for redirecting purposes. Over the past year, .РФ has expanded by 5.6%.

Andrei Vorobyov, Director of the Coordination Center for TLD RU/РФ, commented, “The most important thing at this point is that there is interest in .РФ from our users. The domain is growing; the number of operating websites is increasing, as is the number of domains assigned. The domain has gone a long way and I think this experience is useful to our colleagues who have launched new top-level domains. .РФ is the absolute leader among IDN domains. This became possible thanks to our colleagues, friends, partners, and everybody involved in its creation, development and support. Thank you and happy anniversary to .РФ.”

This news release was sourced from:
https://cctld.ru/en/news/news_detail.php?ID=9830

Domain Name Registry

CENTR welcomes its new Board of Directors

CENTR small logo[news release] CENTR is happy to announce that it has elected its new Board of Directors at the association’s 55th General Assembly in Budva, Montenegro. Jörg Schweiger (DENIC, .de) was elected as Chair of the organisation’s Board of Directors. Pierre Bonis (AFNIC, .fr) and Irina Danelia (Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ) were also elected as Board members. All new terms are effective as of 17 February 2016. They join current Board members Elisabeth Ekstrand (IIS, .se) and Danko Jevtović (RNIDS, .rs/.СРБ), who were elected on 19 March 2015. Danko Jevtović has also been appointed Treasurer of the Board.
Jörg Schweiger studied computer sciences and economics. Before joining DENIC in 2007, he held various IT management positions in the insurance business. After 7 years as Chief Technology Officer, he became DENIC’s CEO in 2014.
CENTR Board Members 2016
Pierre Bonis has 15 years’ experience in the field of ICTs, both in government (foreign affairs and digital economy ministry) and in the private sector (AFNIC). He has been Deputy CEO at AFNIC since 2012. He graduated in literature, philosophy and law.
Irina Danelia is a physicist by training and a graduate from the Moscow Lomonosov University. She has nearly two decades of service in executive positions in the international and Russian telecommunication industry. She has been an executive at the Coordination Center for TLD RU/РФ for more than 6 years.
CENTR wishes to warmly thank the contribution and unabating commitment of its outgoing Chair Giovanni Seppia (EURid, .eu), as well as outgoing Board members Richard Wein (NIC.AT, .at), who was first elected in 2006 and re-elected as Treasurer since, and Lise Fuhr (formerly DK Hostmaster, .dk), who was elected in February 2012. CENTR further congratulates the newly elected Board Chair and members, and wishes them great success in their new positions.
This CENTR news release was sourced from:
https://centr.org/news/ga55/02-18-2016/4725/centr-welcomes-its-new-board-directors
Domain Name Disputes, Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registrars, Domain Name Registry

New Approaches To .RU/.РФ Domain Disputes

RU Coordination Center logoThe Court for Intellectual Property Rights has approved a reference guide on issues arising during consideration of domain name disputes. This reference guide was prepared based on the recommendations of the Scientific Advisory Board under the Court. Sergei Kopylov, the head of the legal department at the Coordination Center for TLD RU/РФ, is a member of the board.

The reference guide is to be used in courts during consideration of domain name disputes. The document clarifies many of the provisions and recommendations published in earlier documents. In particular, the guide states that a legal action for infringement of trademark rights is to be filed against the domain name administrator or the person who is actually using the domain name. This provides additional guarantees to registrars against being sued as co-defendants.

The new document also addresses the issue of brand name squatting – a wide-spread practice based on registering a similarly named brand. As stated in the document, the court can reject a respective request if there is evidence of brand name ownership abuse. Generally, when considering domain name disputes, courts are advised to use the UDRP principles in determining the administrators’ integrity.

“The fact that the Court for Intellectual Property Rights heeds to industry experts, reflecting their opinions in official documents, is very positive,” Sergei Kopylov said. “This contributes to the further systematization of judicial practice and the development of a uniform approach to all domain disputes, no matter what court reviews them.”

This announcement was sourced from:
cctld.ru/en/news/news_detail.php?ID=5755

Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registrars, Domain Name Registry

.RU Suspends 195 Malicious Domains In January

RU Coordination Center logoIn January 2014, Group-IB, an Internet security company, filed 199 suspension notices to accredited domain registrars, resulting in 191 suspended .ru domain names. Of the eight domain names that remain delegated, seven were unsuspended after their owners addressed the causes which had led to the suspension. These domain names were unsuspended by a special request made by CERT-GIB.

Most of the detected malicious domains were botnet controllers (47%), while phishing resources constituted the smallest part of the malicious domains (13%).

Group-IB partners search for and detect malicious domains under an agreement with the RU Coordination Center to combat malicious activities in .RU and .РФ Russian domains. Group-IB’s competencies include tackling criminal activities in Russian domains .RU and .РФ, such as phishing, unauthorised access, spreading malware and controlling botnets.

For detailed information on how to report cyber threats and other malicious activities, see the RU Coordination Center’s website.

Domain Name Aftermarket, Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registrars, Domain Name Registry, ICANN and Governance

CcTLD Updates: .au, .cr, .id, .nl, .ru, .sg

Following the 2010 Names Policy Panel, auDA, the .au policy and regulatory body, has announced they will be implementing some of the Panel’s recommendations.

There are two main policy changes. One relates to domain monetisation in .com.au and .net.au, which sees the policy rules in effect “incorporated into the Domain Name Eligibility and Allocation Policy Rules for Open 2LDs at Schedules C (com.au) and E (net.au).”

The second relates to the little used .id.au 2LD, previously open only to individuals using their actual name or nickname. Now registrants will be able to register a domain name in the 2LD that relates to “a personal interest or hobby of the registrant.”

NIC Costa Rica announced that on 16 October 2012, the registries from Germany (.de), Brazil (.br) and Czech Republic (.cz) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with NIC Costa Rica (.cr). In their announcement NIC Costa Rica notes “the agreements allows for mutually beneficial projects such as: promote the exchange of expertise, share best practices related to management, strategy and business models, work together on initiatives that can lead to more efficient processes among other projects.”

The registry for .id domain names (Indonesia) said there is a good chance the ccTLD will become the largest in south east Asia. According to a Tech In Asia report,  Indonesia’s 103,882 .id domains are still outnumbered by Singapore’s .sg and Malaysia’s .my domains, which have 144,591 and 206,663 registered domains respectively.” The ccTLD has seen a 62.5 percent increase in registration in 2012 with the registry, PANDI, forecasting a growth rate of up to 170 percent in 2013 which, if it happens, would mean there would be 300,000 more new .id domain names at the end of 2013.

The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and SIDN have jointly written to ICANN on the subject of last resort redelegation. The move is linked to contingency arrangements that the ministry and SIDN made in the 2008 Covenant on Safeguarding the .nl Domain, with a view to ensuring the continuity and stability of the .nl domain under all circumstances. The letter informs ICANN about the Covenant and about the contingency arrangements made at the national level, in case a last resort redelegation should ever be necessary.

On 19 December, 2012, the Coordination Center for TLD RU/РФ hosted a press conference on the “Russian Domain Space 2012: the bottom line”. The press conference looked at the achievement os 2012 and emerging future trends.

Issues covered were the stability of Russia’s TLDs, .ru and .рф, the growth in registrations of both TLDs to go past a combined total of five million, the safety of the DNS and DNSSEC and Russian applications for new gTLDs.

And the Coordination Center for TLD RU also announced the Russian Domains stats portal now enables to compare the domain zones in a highly visual mode. Compare Data will prove useful for web analysts, media and other Internet community members as well as for the members of the domain industry.

The Singaporean registry, SGNIC, announced that from 2 January 2013, all new businesses and companies registered with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) via its BizFile system on or after 5 October 2012, will save at least S$30 for the first year of registration for their first .sg domain name (ending with “.com.sg” or “.sg”).

In another SGNIC announcement, from 1 to 31 January 2013, a selected group of Premium Domain Names (“PDNs”) will be released for application at a base price ranging from $642 to $21,400 (including GST). If the name has multiple applications, it will be allocated to the applicant with the highest bid.

Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registrars, Domain Name Registry

ccTLD Updates for .xxx, .pw, .ru, .fr, .nl, .ee, vn, .be, .no

“What has really happened as a result of .XXX?” one year on from its launch is the focus of an article on Xbiz.

The article notes that “among other things, new sites have come to market, new companies have formed to capitalise on new opportunities in the adult space and a level of accountability and oversight added to an industry that has long shunned supervision of any sort — while the majority of trademark disputes have been swiftly resolved in favour of the legitimate rights holders.”

And it notes that ICM Registry’s Stuart Lawley claims .XXX “has comfortably exceeded the company’s sales expectations — based on the figures it communicated back in 2003 and 2004 in its original application to ICANN.” ICM also believes renewal rates will be high, even though the first anniversary is not quite here.

The .pw ccTLD is relaunching being branded as ‘the Professional Web, with the new registry opening up a 68-day sunrise programme as of 3 December. The sunrise offers some unique features aimed at reducing overhead for brand-owners.

A guest posting on DomainNameNews from Kate Moran of TM.Biz, .pw’s trademark validation agent, looked at trademark validation for .PW. Unsurprisingly the posting considers .pw a leader, saying “the .pw registry is proposing to protect not only exact matches, but also any domain containing the trademark, misspellings, abbreviations and language translations of the validated trademark. The trademark validation agent, TM.Biz is coupling these rules with automated searches of 70 trademark databases.”

On 4 December, the Coordination Center for TLD RU/РФ and the Technical Center of Internet generated DNSSEC keys for .RU, one of the two Russian national domains. A formal event signified the first phase of signing .RU with DNSSEC, with all works expected to be finalised by the end of December 2012.

The .FR registry, Afnic, has released their December 2012 Domain Name Industry. The latest report looks at the growth rate for IPV6-compatible .fr domain names. In the report Afnic focuses on the success rate of Syreli claims in relation to the age of the domain name. Everything suggests that rights-holders are reactive and quickly intervene to enforce their rights via the Syreli procedure. The full report is available from the Afnic website here.

SIDN, the .nl registry, has published their final report of the 2012 Domain Name Debate. The debate examined issues such as availability of registrant’s details from Whois and drop catching. To check out the final report, check out the SIDN website here.

The price to registrars of .ee domain names will be cut by 11.8 percent on 1 March 2013, which will see the price cut from €17 to €15. Maximum registration periods will also be extended with options of two and three years.

Registrations of .vn domain names hit225,970 in the third quarter of 2012 according to VNNIC’s white paper on Vietnam’s internet.

Alternative Dispute Resolution celebrated its tenth birthday on 12 December, the .be registry dns.be announced. To mark the occasion, Cepina (the Belgian Centre for Arbitration and Mediation) organised a symposium in conjunction with DNS.be.

Norid, the registry for .no domain names, is again receiving reports on a company who tries to force Norwegian companies to buy domain names. The service is said to be offered to protect a company name or brand.

The issue may be a proposal to register a domain name within other top level domains, such as .com or .as, or they may suggest to register the domain name in different spellings, for instance with and without a hyphen. The company who offers services like this, often tells a story about other actors interested in buying the domain name, and that they need a quick decision.

 

Domain Name Registry, ICANN and Governance

Russian internet growth and security widely discussed at Seliger 2012

RU Coordination Center logoThe Coordination Center has partnered with Seliger 2012 International Youth Forum for its Innovation and Enterprise block. From July 1 to July 9, 2012, the Coordination Center representatives, as well as those of the CC’s partners, engaged in a number of sessions with reports on current state of the Internet, its growth prospects and principles of using the Internet safely and effectively.

Andrei Kolesnikov, the Coordination Center’s CEO, told the forum attendees about the past and the future of the global network and its Russian part, sharing his views on the nearest future of the Internet. Kolesnikov thinks the intellectual right would be the first sector to suffer from Internet growth, as performers will have to give concerts in order to break even, the labels become unprofitable and the movies become crowdsourced. He also mentioned that it is virtually impossible to erase information stored in the cyberspace, and everything that is written in the Internet is saved for a long time. “Don’t forget this when you want to write something on the Internet”, Andrei Kolesnikov told the attendees.

Marina Nikerova, Technical Center of Internet’s deputy director, spoke on the history of the domain space, its governing charter and business processes between Internet stakeholders, both in Russia and worldwide. She briefed the atttendees on how ccTLDs, generic and IDN top-level domains are connected and how they affect the growth of the Internet, mentioning ICANN’s new gTLD program, its prospects and Russian applications supported by TCI’s backbone services, such as .SKOLKOVO, .ДЕТИ (“children”), and .TATAR.

Ilya Peresedov, CEO of the Smart Internet Foundation, shared his approach to the so-called “Internet islands”, where users can find Internet resources that correspond to their needs and preferences. According to Peresedov, creating these “islands” for children and teenagers can help in providing the youth with interesting and useful information, which the Smart Internet Foundation aims to do. Applying for .ДЕТИ top-level domain and developing a specific domain space will help to address this issue, Peresedov thinks.

Ilya Sachkov, CEO of Group-IB, told the attendees how to use the Internet safely. Group-IB is one of the leading private information security companies in Russia. In 2011, the Coordination Center has partnered with Group-IB to prevent cybercrime in .РФ and .RU top-level domains.

“Seliger is an unique ground that unites the most bright members of Russian youth. The Coordination Center tries to address the younger audiences more and more as they are the most active part of the Internet society and they will define what the Internet will look like in 10, 20 or 30 years, — Andrei Kolesnikov, the Coordination Center’s CEO, says. – This is our first experience as a partner of the forum, and a very positive one indeed – we could see that the young attendees were very interested and wanted to know more”.

This CCTLD.RU announcement was sourced from:
cctld.ru/en/news/news_detail.php?ID=3926

New gTLDs

Russia Files Application for .ДЕТИ (.CHILDREN)

[news release] Smart Internet Foundation has filed an application for a new generic top level domain, .ДЕТИ (Russian for “children”). Technical Center of Internet has aided the foundation in completing and filing an application for the domain.

According to New gTLD program terms, the applicant has to provide extensive information regarding proposed domain’s mission, terms and conditions for users and market perspectives for the new domain, as well as proof of enough financial and technical resources to run the domain. Smart Internet Foundation and Techincal Center of Internet worked together to elaborate a massive code for the proposed domain, with an application taking about 500 pages of text.

It is worth noting that Russian government officials have praised the idea of creating a special domain, .ДЕТИ, for younger Internet users, with Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister of Russia, backing the initiative in October 2011 at Agency of Strategic Initiatives meeting.

“Thanks to ICANN’s new gTLD program, the appearance of global network is due to change in the next years,” says Ilya Peresedov, Smart Internet Foundation’s executive director. “It is very good to see Russian companies filing a certain number of applications, and I’m very proud that one of the most promising projects, .ДЕТИ, is within Smart Internet Foundation’s area of activity”. Smart Internet Foundation was founded by the Coordination Center in 2011. One of the major tasks for the foundation is to create safe, stable and captivating Internet playground for younger audiences.

“For the Coordination Center, .ДЕТИ is an initiative directed on society, with Smart Internet Foundation created specifically to serve this purpose,” Andrei Kolesnikov, the Coordination Center CEO, notes. “We hope to gain ICANN’s approval and, in a year or so, to start creating an unique Internet space for kids where Russia’s small citizens will have lots of fascinating experiences suitable for them, while being protected from inappropriate content”.

This news release was sourced from:
cctld.ru/en/news/news_detail.php?ID=3635