Registration for the 2022 Nordic Domain Days to be held in Stockholm in May 2022 has opened. The conference that focusses on the domain name industry in the five Nordic countries – Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland, and let’s not forget the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland as well, is aimed as a means of discussing domain name issues for the Nordic region, and is aimed at registries, registrars, resellers, service providers and investors.
The demand for .fi domain names has soared since the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic in March, with registrations recently passing the half million milestone, Traficom, the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, reported last week.
Registrations of .fi domain names has increased markedly since the last northern autumn when the Finnish registry introduced a new registry-registrar model. From the beginning of 2017, more than 40,000 new .fi domain names have been registered and at the end of June, the number of .fi domain names registered totalled 430,000.
The Finnish ccTLD registry attributes a large portion of the increase has been attributed to the new model where FICORA has delegated registrations to registrars only, dropping the role it also had, as well as allowing registrations to anyone, anywhere in the world.
“The new operational model from last autumn has involved an increased interest in .fi domain names”, says Juhani Juselius, Chief Specialist at FICORA. âNow anyone anywhere in the world can register .fi domain names.â
During the first half of 2017, 40,079 new .fi domain names were registered. In June alone there were 5,642 new registrations and at the end of the month, the total number of .fi domain names registered was 430,143.
“Compared to the same period a year ago, the growth has been up to 34% as the number of domain names registered in June 2016 was 29,861”, continued Juselius.
FICORA has issued a regulation on domain names that end with fi or ax and the registration of such names. The regulation enters into force on 5 September 2016 as fi- and ax-domain names switch to the new international registry-registrar model.
Domain Name Regulation 68/2016 M
This announcement was sourced from:
https://domain.fi/info/en/index/tietoa/ajankohtaista/2016/P_9.html
ICANN announced their world tour locations and dates for public meetings for the rest of 2015 and 2016 at its recent meeting in Marrakech, Morocco.The next public meeting, the 56th, relocated from Panama City to Helsinki, Finland, over Zika virus fears will be held from 27 to 30 June. Details are available here.The next stop on their never ending world tour schedule takes the ICANN community to San Juan in Puerto Rico from 29 October to 4 November which will include the AGM. However it’s possible that as with the Panama City meeting, the mosquito-transmitted Zika virus may cause a relocation. But there is no open discussion of this yet.However Reuters has reported that “in Puerto Rico, the Aedes aegypti mosquito that carries Zika is widespread, and Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said controlling it will require a multi-pronged approach involving government, municipalities, neighbours, families and society at large.”Then in 2017 the ICANN world tour continues taking the organisation and community to Copenhagen, Denmark (11 to 16 March), Johannesburg, South Africa (26 to 29 June) and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (28 October to 3 November).
The Finnish ccTLD registry is to stop selling domain names as part of a number of changes being introduced from 5 September. From this date, registrants will be required to register their domains with their own registrar while FICORA, the .fi registry, will act as the registry and policy and regulatory body.
Additionally, the local presence requirement for applicants is abandoned. This means that foreign companies, organisations and private persons become eligible to register .fi domain names regardless of their place of residence. The age limit of 15 for domain name holders is also abandoned. Furthermore, domain names that consist of a combination of a person’s first and last names may be freely registered. .FI domains may also be registered with the purpose of redelivery which is currently still illegal.
EURid, the .eu registry, has announced that preparations for the launch of .eu in Cyrillic are nearing completion. The official launch date for .eu in Cyrillic is 1 June. EURid will fully enforce the basic rule that the second level script must match the top-level script. This means that the current domain names registered in Cyrillic under .eu (Latin string) will undergo a âscript adjustmentâ phase.
All policies, procedures and features currently available for .eu (Latin string) such as transfers, bulk transfers, multiyear, DNSSEC, registry lock, Customised Reduction Schemes, Co-funded Marketing Programme, etc., will also apply to .ÐµÑ (Cyrillic string).
The current .eu Registration Policy, Terms & Conditions and WHOIS policy will apply to domain names registered under .ÐµÑ (Cyrillic string).
A complete list of important administrative, legal and technical guidelines regarding the implementation of .eu in Cyrillic is available here.
Red.es is advising that registrants of .es domain names need to update the data associated with their .es domains.
Red.es or the accredited registrar s currently contacting registrants to ensure that the date is correct, truthful and updated, which it is required to be at all times. Any registrant that doesnât comply with the terms and conditions may find their domain is cancelled.
Another change for .es domains is that as of 28 May, the current SSL certificate will be replaced with a new one, with a key length of 2048 bits and SHA-256 algorithm. With this update, Red.es will improve its portal protection and increase the security of established connections with the website.
[news release] Finnish domain name applicants favour reliability and Finnish origin in their choice of domain name, because the demand of fi-domain names has remained high. The popularity of the fi-domain name does not reflect on their information security, because only a fraction of domain name holders deploy the Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSec) FICORA has offered for a year now.
About 52,000 new domain names are granted each year, but despite the success of the fi-domain name, the deployment of the DNSSec extension is at its infacy in Finland. There are only 63 domain names protected by DNSSec, which is very low in the international comparison. For example, as many as 145,000 Swedish domain names ending with .se use DNSSec extension. The world’s fourth most common top-level country code, the Netherlands’ .nl domain has more than a million domain name holders using the DNSSec.
DNSSec (Domain Name System Security Extensions) is an extension improving the information security of the name service, which ensures the origin and integrity of the information received from the name server. When DNSSEC is in use, responses to name system queries are digitally signed. DNSSEC ensures that responses to name system queries come from the right sender and that the response information has not been modified. This guarantees that people using the internet are only shown the actual website that they intended to call up.
FICORA recommends strongly that fi-domain name holders deploy DNSSec. More information on the extension can be found at domain.fi. Domain name holders may inquire about the DNSSec support from their service provider.
To continue reading this FICORA news release, go to:
https://domain.fi/info/en/index/tietoa/ajankohtaista/2012/P_50.html
[news release] The Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority (FICORA) is examining hundreds of deliberately misspelled fi-domain names of Finnish companies and services. A total of 886 fi-domain names are being examined. They were applied for via a Maltese registrar but registered under a Finnish holder.
FICORA has contacted the Finnish holder and the Maltese registrar and continues to investigate the case. The Maltese registrar’s right to apply for new fi-domain names has been denied until further notice.
Spelling mistake leads to advertisement site
It is typical of the misspelled domain names that the difference between them and a business name, trademark or similar protected by the Domain Name Act is hardly noticeable, which is when the internet user ends up on a false site due to e.g. a spelling mistake. For example, http://www-mol.fi/ is such a misspelled address.
Typically, a website utilising a misspelled address contains advertisement links to various services. If the user, who has entered the site by accident, clicks on the advertisement link, the site maintainer gets paid by the advertiser. The phenomenon is called ‘typosquatting’ in English.
This FICORA news release was sourced from:
https://domain.fi/info/en/index/tietoa/ajankohtaista/2012/P_29.html
To register your .FI domain name, check out Europe Registry here.
FICORA is promising to introduce an improved registry service for .FI domain names next week that they say will offers users a more user-friendly way of applying for, renewing, terminating and paying for .FI domain names taking into consideration the modern requirements for electronic services better than before.
The renewed service introduces DNSSEC support to improve the information security of FI domain names. The service also contains full IPv6 support, which is critical since it is believed that IPv6 connections will grow strongly in the future as available IPv4 addresses can no longer be assigned.
The improvements in the service contain added information on domain names for different user groups, such as companies, organisations and private persons. The service provides answers to such questions as who is entitled to apply for a domain name, to whom are FI domain names granted, what can be registered as a domain name, what are domain names used for and how are they applied for.
The service has a specific section for service providers who can be authorized to apply for a domain name and assist domain name applicants in matters concerning the name server, server status and email servers.
To implement the new service, which also includes a new website that is currently working, it will not be possible to apply for new .FI domain names or make changes to existing ones this weekend, from 08:00 Saturday 17 September till 10:00 Monday 19 September local Finnish time.
To register your .FI domain name, check out Europe Registry here.
[news release] FICORA will introduce the Domain Name System Security Extension (DNSSec) for Finnish domain names. The security extension provides a powerful protection against forgery of domain names as well against other forms of attack. The introduction of the system guarantees that people using the internet are only shown the actual website that they intended to call up.
The security extension will be taken into production in the fi-domain name service in autumn 2010, but the testing of the system begins in summer 2010. At this point no measures are required from Internet users or domain name holders, but network operators are responsible for the introduction of the security extension. The service will be opened for the users of Finnish domain names in March 2011.
About DNSSec
DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) is an extension to the domain name system, with the purpose of improving the information security of the name service. The name service can be compared to a telephone directory that covers the entire world, and every domain name (e.g. www.dnssec.fi) in this directory has been given a unique IP address (e.g. 87.239.124.120) of its own.
When DNSSEC is in use, all responses to name service queries are digitally signed. This technology allows you to ensure that responses to name service queries come from the correct sender and that the information has not been modified en route. In other words, DNSSEC guarantees the integrity and origin of information.
A key pair, consisting of a public key and a private key, is needed in order to create a digital signature. The private key is kept secret and the holder alone has access to it. The public key is published in its own record in the name service. The digital signature can be verified by using the public key corresponding with the private key.
This news release was sourced from:
www.ficora.fi/en/index/viestintavirasto/uutiset/2010/P_22.html
To register your .FI domain name check out Europe Registry here.
