Norwegian-based cybersecurity company IQ Global AS must be good. This week they announced one of their long-term customers, the Swedish Internet Foundation, operator of the Swedish ccTLD .se, has bought a stake in the company, believed to be around 20%.
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 GDPR is coming and a number of ccTLD registries are giving registrars heart palpitations. Itâs a month till the European Unionâs General Data Protection Regulation comes into play and the Icelandic, Norwegian, Slovakian and United Kingdom ccTLD operators are only just announcing how theyâll deal with it.
For Icelandâs .is they will stop publishing names, addresses and telephone numbers of personal contacts by default from the ISNIC WHOIS database. For individuals who wish to continue to publish their information, they must log in, go to “My Settings” and select “Name and Address Published”.
ISNIC will however, at least for the time being, continue to publish email addresses, country and techincal information of all NIC-handles associated with .is domains. Those customers (individuals) who have recorded a personally identifiable email address, and do not want it published, will need to change their .is WHOIS email address to something impersonal. However the Icelandic country code top level domain isnât happy with the new regulation. They note the GDPR âwill neither lead to better privacy nor a safer network environment.â
For the sake of the internet community, e.g. Individual users, Service Providers, Hosting Companies, and many other stake holders, ISNIC will continue to publish email addresses and the country name of all contact types until further notice.
For NORID, the registry for Norwayâs .no, they have made a few changes to their policies that come into effect on 5 May. NORID state they will âonly collect data that we need, and that the domain holder shall be informed about which data is being processed by Norid. Starting on 5 May, we will collect less data about the holder than what we currently do.â Following consultation with the with the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, NORID will launch a new version of WHOIS on 22 May.
And Nominet, the .uk registry, has announced their changes. Following a consultation period that outlined their proposed changes that were published for comment between 1 March and 4 April, Nominet have announced that:
âWe have taken a conservative approach to publishing data, to ensure that we do not fall foul of the new legislation,â said Nominet COO Ellie Bradley. âWhile, as a result, we will be publishing less data on the WHOIS â we have comprehensive procedures already in place that ensure that we will continue to respond swiftly to requests for information to pursue legitimate interests.â
The proposals also outlined an approach to replacing the existing privacy services framework with recognition of a Proxy Service offered by registrars. In response to the feedback, Nominet has decoupled this proposal from the bulk of the GDPR-related changes and will consult further on this topic in June 2018.
Last March we passed an important milestone: 30 years of norisd
Norwegian domain names under the country code .no. Since 1987 .no has been an essential part of the Norwegian internet infrastructure. Wednesday 18 October we will have the pleasure of inviting to an open seminar in Oslo to discuss the past and the future of internet. In addition to the invited speakers we will present a special art performance.
We expect an exciting day where we will take a look in the back mirror as well as in the crystal bowl. We will highlight topics such as AI, use of big data, the digital traces we leave behind us, and how the âchilling effectâ affects us. Our intention is to bring new insight and inspiration by focusing on different issues raised by the technological development: Where are we, and where are we going?
The following contributors are already confirmed:
The seminar will take place at Thon Hotel Bristol in Oslo starting 9 am and ending 3:30 pm. The seminar is free of charge, lunch included. Final programme and more details to be published in mid September together with information on how to register. Limited number of participants.
The seminar will be mostly in Norwegian, except from a couple of contributions which will be in English.
This NORID announcement was sourced from:
https://www.norid.no/en/30-ar-med-norske-domenenavn-seminar-18-oktober/
Plans by the Dutch ccTLD registry, SIDN, to sell .bv domain names in the Netherlands, have ended after the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications advised that the required dispensation would not be granted.
The .bv (Bouvet Island) ccTLD has been unused since its creation in 1997. Norid has carefully considered possible ways to develop and use this resource, but the conclusion has been that there are no sustainable ways to utilise .bv for Norwegian users directly. However, the fact that the Bouvet Island is uninhabited, and that .bv thus has no local Internet community, grants the freedom to look into new and innovative ways to develop the ccTLD.
BV is short for âBesloten vennootschap met beperkte aansprakelijkheidâ and in the Netherlands and Belgium is the most common form of a limited liability company, or in English ‘Ltd’ or ‘Inc’.
The idea was for the .bv domain to operate as a platform for sharing validated business data. Enterprises and consumers would be able to visit the platform before buying from or doing business with an unfamiliar company.
“SIDN runs one of the world’s largest top-level domains. They are highly recognized internationally for their professional operations. A collaboration would have given the opportunity for valuable exchange of that knowledge and experienceâ, commented Norid’s General Manager, Hilde Thunem. The idea of a platform for validated business data will now be developed within the .nl domain instead. “Successful implementation of .bv would have had added value for the internet community, both in the Netherlands and in Norway,” said Roelof Meijer, SIDN’s CEO. “Our intention is to press ahead with the concept devised for .bv, but it will now be marketed under the .nl banner.”
From Noridâs point of view they were disappointed saying in a statement:
âWe comply with the decision made by the ministry, and have withdrawn the application for dispensation,â said Noridâs General Manager, Hilde Thunem.
âFrom Noridâs perspective, we regret that we donât get the opportunity to use this domain resource. SIDN runs one of the worldâs largest top-level domains, and they are highly recognised internationally for their professional operations. A collaboration would have given the opportunity for valuable exchange of knowledge and experience that would have benefitted the Norwegian community.â
Norid has found its registrars and registrants are more satisfied with its services offered than in the previous one in 2011.
The survey was conducted by Sentio in November 2014 and its findings published by the .no registry are below.
Registrars
Satisfied with the services
The registrars are satisfied with the services delivered by Norid. Since 2011 we have removed paper based routines in the domain registration process. Nine out of ten registrars state that they are satisfied with the application processing times, against eight out of ten in 2011.
The quality of the DNS service and the quality of the registry system also received good results.
There has been a positive development in regard to how we solve our tasks. There is now 88 percent that are satisfied with the way we solve our tasks, against 72 percent in 2008.
Information viewed as good
The registrars view the information from Norid as good. More than nine out of ten think that they receive the information they need to guide and inform their customers.
Through the years the registrars have become more and more satisfied with the information from Norid, something that we regard as very positive.
Contact- and information channels
Norid’s webpages, the password protected part of the registrar web and the customer service are considered to be the most important contact- and information channels.
The webpages are considered to be the most important channel. Six out of ten registrars are satisfied with this channel, against barely half of the registrars in 2011.
The registrars considers all the services on the registrar web as useful. The most useful are considered to be information about domains in their account and lists of domains that are in danger of removal.
Norid on Facebook and the registrar seminars are considered to be less important, but the registrars still state that they are satisfied with the seminars.
Only 4 percent are satisfied with Norid on Facebook, and 81 percent have no opinion about this.
Satisfaction with the customer service has increased some since 2008, especially when it comes to contact by phone. 61 percent are satisfied the email communication they have experienced with the customer service, only 2 percent are dissatisfied. The corresponding numbers for phone calls are 47 percent and 4 percent.
Good knowledge about DNSSEC
Eight out of ten registrars states that they have knowledge about DNSSEC, and more than one in four will offer DNSSEC when possible. Six out of ten does not know whether they will offer DNSSEC. (DNSSEC was launched on 9 December 2014.)
Domain Holders
Processes are easy to understand
Most holders know what a registrar is, and find it easy to find a registrar. They also think that it is easy to find information about how to register a domain name.
Positive impression of Norid
Almost eight out ten holders have heard of Norid. When asked about what impression they have of Norid, two out of three say that they have no particular impression. The ones that have formed an impression are mainly postive.
The .no address is considered to be most important
More than half of the holders have registered domain names under other top level domains besides .no, the majority under .com. When asked which domain they consider to be most important, 85 percent answer that they consider the .no address to be most important.
The holders mostly agree that .no is the most known domain in the Norwegian marked. They consider .no as technically stable, and agree with the statement that internet addresses under .no goes to the page that is expected. The opinions are more diveded when it comes to whether .no is the safest domain for online shopping and whether .no is best suited internationally. Most holders think it is important with a domain that signal a connection to Norway. Very few thinks that the toplevel domain is not at all important for how they perceive a web page.
Web pages are easy to use
More than half of the holders have visited Norid’s web pages, and the majority thinks it is easy to find what they are looking for and to understand the information. The number of satisfied holders has increased from 68 percent in 2011 to 71 percent in 2014.
Still good scores for the customer service
Two out of three holders that have been in contact with the customer service are satisfied. This is about the same result as in 2011. The majority is satisfied with the service. Contact by email has received better scores than contact by phone. 62 percent are satisfied and 5 percent are dissatisfied with communication by email, while the corresponding numbers for phone calls are 33 percent and 10 percent.
From 9 December Norwegian domain names can be secured with DNSSEC. This means that an end user can know for sure that he arrives at the correct web page when he looks up a domain name.DNSSEC (DNS Security Extensions) is a security extension to the domain name system (DNS). DNSSEC protected domains are cryptographically signed, and this makes it possible to check that the reply to a domain lookup comes from the correct source of origin, and that the lookup remains unchanged. The purpose is among other things to prevent a scammer to falsify an answer in order to send an end user to a fake web page.In addition to making it more secure to use domain names, extensive use of DNSSEC in the domain name system will prepare the grounds for new services that have to trust safety critical data in DNS.
&nash; DNSSEC increases the security, but at the same time it demands more competence from the people running the name service for a domain. We still think that the technology now is mature enough to be used as an upgrade of the infrastructure, says Hilde Thunem, Managing Director in Norid.
Norid is now offering DNSSEC, and encourages registrars to use the service, but the mechanism will not be activated autmatically for all Norwegian domains. So far 16 registrars offer DNSSEC.
This Norid news release was sourced from:
www.norid.no/nytt/dnssec-lansering.en.html
Norid, best known as the registry for .no (Norway) but also .bv (Bouvet Island) and .sj (Svalbard and Jan Mayen) is looking at making .bv available to Dutch registrants.
The ccTLD is attractive to Dutch companies as the initials âbvâ have the same meaning as âLtdâ for British companies and Dutch companies have been making requests to register .bv domains.
So Norid is negotiating with the .nl (Netherlands) registry, SIDN, about a collaboration to make the .bv TLD available to the Dutch market. According to a statement from Norid, SIDN is currently looking into its potential.
For Norid it is important that a TLD we are responsible for is operated in a way we can vouch for, especially with regard to our values and the quality of the service. It is also important that the operation will not harm the good reputation of .no.
âIf .bv is going to be used, Norid and SIDN want the TLD to provide actual value to Dutch domain name holders, not become yet another top-level domain full of defensive registrations,â said Managing Director of UNINETT Norid AS, Hilde M. Thunem. âWe have also discussed this idea with the Norwegian authorities. They regard the utilisation of an unexploited resource as a positive addition to the existing domain market.â
âHaving this domain alongside our successful country-code domain, .nl, can open up new opportunities,â said Roelof Meijer, CEO of SIDN. âWe have a strong relationship with Norid and therefore look forward to working with them, and with the Dutch business community, to make the .bv domain a success.â
Norwegian individuals are more likely to register a .no domain name now they can register one directly under .no rather than under .priv.no, as was the case prior to 17 June.The survey was carried out by Sentio in June/July 2014 by means of a web panel of 1,000 persons. Some of the questions have been asked before, last time in 2012.
When asked how they search for information on the Internet, half usually pick a link with Norwegian text from the resulting list, and almost half say that they tend to choose a link with a Norwegian domain name. The respondents are divided on whether the top-level domain has any bearing on their choice. 29 per cent agree that the top-level domain has a significance for their choice, 28 per cent disagree, while 26 per cent has no opinion any way. There are no significant changes since 2012 in the way people search for information on the Internet.
Eight in ten know that a domain name can be used for websites, while four in ten know that domains can be used for email. 15 per cent do not know what a domain name can be used for. Men show more knowledge on this issue than women.
This question has been asked before. However, the question was earlier asked unprompted, while the respondents this time could see the relevant answers. Due to this we cannot conclude whether the knowledge on what domain names can be used for has actually changed.
Seven in ten know that both private individuals with a Norwegian identity number as well as enterprises with a Norwegian address can register a domain name under .no.
One in five has registered one or more private domain names under a top-level domain. Half of these has registered under .no and half under .com, which is about the same result as in 2012. Among those who had not registered a domain name, four per cent plan to get one.
On 17 June 2014 .no was opened for private domain name registrations. One in five consider it more likely to register a Norwegian domain name for private use when they have the possibility to register directly under .no.
We consider it relevant to add the actual numbers of private registrations to the findings from this survey. Through July and August 2014 an average of more than 60 private domain names were registered every weekday, a level that has been stable during the entire period. This is vast beyond the corresponding numbers for registrations under priv.no during the period until .no was opened for individuals, see statistics for private domain names.
Many are in favour of the statement that .no is the most well-known domain in the Norwegian market, and consider it to be likely that an Internet address under .no leads to the enterprise that owns the name. Analyses show that people consider .no to be a safer domain for online shopping than .com. Both .no and .com are consideres technically stable. The .com top-level domain is more likely to be considered suitable for enterprises working internationally.
With regard to reputation for .no and .com, the 2014 findings are about the same as those in 2012. However, this year some fewer think that .no is suitable for international business, while some more consider .com suitable in the international market.
An awareness campaign – erdetledig.no – was carried out in connection with the launch of .no for private individuals in June 2014. Seven per cent of the respondents have noticed the campaign. A majority has been exposed from an online newspaper (65 per cent), 26 per cent has noticed the campaign on Facebook.
This Norid news release was sourced from:
www.norid.no/statistikk/su/omdomme-2014.en.html
As of 17 June, individuals will be able to apply for their very own second level .no domain name.
To start, applications from individuals will be accepted from 10:00 local time on the day. Everyone should have an equal opportunity when the allocations begin. This means that during a transitional period, where there is more than one application there will be a draw, that seems to be akin to a lottery. The draw will close at 16:00 on 18 June. After the draw, applications are processed on a first come, first served basis.
âA Norwegian domain name is stable and among the most secure in the world. We are very pleased to extend this service to private individuals,â says Hege Ossletten, Acting Managing Director of Norid.
There will not be any priorities on private domain names. This means that anyone can apply for any name. The person registering a name must, however, ensure that the name isn’t in violation of Norwegian law or a third party’s rights.
More information, in Norwegian, is available at www.erdetledig.no