Goldstein Report

Tag: Romania

  • INterpol: More than 1,000 arrests and $27m intercepted in massive financial crime crackdown

    Interpol logo

    [news release] An operation coordinated by INTERPOL codenamed HAECHI-II saw police arrest more than 1,000 individuals and intercept a total of nearly US$27 million of illicit funds, underlining the global threat of cyber-enabled financial crime.

    (more…)

  • Slilpp Marketplace Disrupted in International Cyber Operation

    [news release] The U.S. Justice Department today announced its participation in a multinational operation involving actions in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, and Romania to disrupt and take down the infrastructure of the online marketplace known as Slilpp.

    (more…)

  • CentralNic Spreads Its Wings Into Romania and Brazil

    The CentralNic Group plc has spread its wings into Romania and Brazil with the acquisition of the business assets of Delaware-based GlobeHosting Inc., a leading registrar and domain hosting provider in multiple markets including Romania and Brazil.

    This transaction is CentralNic’s third acquisition in nine months, as it continues its industry consolidation strategy, expanding into key markets that offer significant growth opportunities.

    “GlobeHosting plugs very easily into CentralNic’s business operations and enhances the quality of the Group’s earnings,” said Ben Crawford, CEO of CentralNic. The transaction adds to CentralNic’s access to the Romanian and Brazilian markets, which each exhibit attractive characteristics for sustained growth, as well as taking advantage of the upselling capabilities and economies of scale that CentralNic brings to the companies it acquires.”

    GlobeHosting is a recurring revenue business operating as a registrar and retailer of domain names and SSL certificates, and a hosting provider servicing principally the Romanian and Brazilian markets. Its businesses fit comfortably into CentralNic’s Retail and Reseller divisions, two of the four key industry channels alongside Corporate and Registry, all of which are well-served by CentralNic following its August acquisition of KeyDrive S.A. for a maximum consideration $55 million.

    The total consideration of €2.56 million comprises an initial consideration of €1.5 million, coupled with a deferred payment of €608k due on the first anniversary of completion and €450k due on the second anniversary of completion. It is 3.0 times GlobeHosting’s revenues of €849k for the 12 months to 31 July 2018 and 6.1 times its EBITDA of €419k.

    Romania’s country code, .RO, is undergoing significant adjustment from which GlobeHosting is expected to benefit, with imminent changes to its pricing structure involving all existing .RO users renewing their domains. Internet penetration in Romania is growing with an approximately four per cent increase in 2017. Currently approximately 60 per cent of Romania’s circa 20 million population uses the Internet.

  • .RO Becomes The Last European ccTLD To Introduce Registration Fee

    Romania’s ccTLD registry, RoTLD, introduced a registration fee for .ro domain names for the first time in March 2018. 6 months later, commencing 30 August, RoTLD will commence deleting domain names for which the annual registration fee has not been paid. It is the last European ccTLD to introduce a registration fee.

    For domain names that the registration fee, described by RoTLD as a “registration and annual maintenance” fee, is not paid before the expiration date, they will be scheduled for automatic deletion (Pending Delete). The deletion will be performed after 90 days from the expiration date if, in this period, the registrant does not renew their registration by paying the registration fee. Should they not renew, the domain name becomes available for new registration based on a “first come, first served” basis.

    Renewals of .ro domain names can be made for periods of 1 to 10 years and the registry fee, the fee charged to registrars, is €6 plus VAT. RoTLD set the fee taking into consideration general trends in domain name registration fees and adjusted to take into account the national circumstances of the Romanian market, such as income and purchasing power.

    For those who register domain names with ICI Registrar, which like RoTLD is a subsidiary of ICI-Bucharest, they pay the annual registry fee plus €12 (plus VAT).

    Expiry dates of domain names already registered were calculated taking into account the principle that the old registration fee should cover at least 5 years of maintenance. Domains registered before March 1, 2013 will receive a grace period of minimum 3 months, in order to pay the registration fee. Thus, the oldest domain names reached their expiry date on June 1, 2018.

    For more information, see:
    https://www.rotld.ro/static/media/uploads/anunt_introducere_serviciu_mentenanta_anuala_en.pdf
    https://www.rotld.ro/home/

  • ccTLD Updates: .DE, .EU, .IE, .RO, .IT and .DK

    DENIC logoDENIC is warning .de domain registrants of German-language emails coming from the forged email address of info@denic.de. The emails claim to acknowledging a domain transfer and have the subject “DENIC eG – Domain-Transfer Bestätigung”. DENIC is advising the emails have nothing to do with them and contain a ZIP file that contains malware.

    EURid currently has open the .eu Web Awards. The awards are an online competition where .eu and .eю websites can be nominated for a chance to win a prestigious award to be presented at a stunning ceremony in Brussels.

    There are numerous categories including “The Better World”, for ecologically minded websites, and “The Laurels”, for websites that promote ongoing education/Pan-European projects. For more information see webawards.eurid.eu.

    The IE Domain Registry has published their annual report for 2015. The report includes a large amount of information for those interested in .ie stats, such as there were 35,225 new .ie registrations in 2015, an increase of 13.4 percent when compared to 2014 (31,072). Accounting for .ie non-renewals or deletions, there was a net increase in registrations of 12,929, an increase of 48 percent on 2014 net registrations.

    Turnover increased five percent to €2.86 million. The company registered an operating loss of €517,082 in 2015. The loss is principally accounted for as a result of expenditure of €508,000 on activities under the company’s Strategic Development Fund.

    Commencing on 6 July, .ro domain registrants have the option of signing their domain names with DNSSEC the Romanian registry RO TLD has announced.

    And get ready for the three millionth .it domain name under management. During May and June there were around 20,000 new .it domain names added to the base meaning they are 40,000 registrations short of the three million milestone. The .it is the ninth largest ccTLD.

    Have you ever wondered about what the .dk registry should do about severe violations and misuse of .dk domain names? If so, DIFO invites you to participate in the consultation that extends over the Danish summer.

    On 6 June, DIFO held a successful hearing which started a debate about when a domain name can be suspended, how the registrant is validated and what personal information DIFO may pass on.

    A large number of representatives from the Danish internet community, from government authorities and the Copenhagen Police to a wide range of IT suppliers participated.

    Issues to be considered include should the process of suspending a domain name become faster than it is today? One proposal is to create a special suspension board with responsibility for the suspension of domain names. Can you thereby ensure efficient treatment of cases of evident crime on Danish domain names? What about the legal certainty?

    DIFO’s validation of the identity of registrants behind a domain name is currently carried out by letter but perhaps the current validation model should be tightened up? A more restrictive solution with forced NemID validation for Danes and an activation code by post for foreign registrants gained great support at the oral hearing. However there were strong voices against increased control and concerns that domain registration will become too difficult for the customers.

    Should DIFO disclose information about anonymous registrants to authorities and individuals quicker and easier than today? DIFO looks forward to see the right holders participate in the written hearing.

  • .RO To Introduce Yearly Renewal Fee

    .RO To Introduce Yearly Renewal Fee

    RO TLD logoThe Romanian government is proposing to change from a one time registration fee to a yearly registration fee, the Romania Insider reports.

    Currently .ro registrants pay a fee of €50 that entitles them to the domain forever. There are currently around 700,000 .ro domain names, but the government wants to change to an annual fee to help raise more money.

    “The Government decision features a renewal period of three months from when the decision will be published in the Official Gazette, which applies to all registered .ro domains within the previous 24 months,” the Romania Insider reports. “The renewal can be done for one year, or for two years, with payment in advance.”

    “The authorities, via the The National Institute for Research & Development in Informatics (ICI), which manages and sells the .ro domains, need to get more revenues to cover maintenance costs, data security costs, as well as database management costs.”

  • Significant improvements to the .RO domain names registration and management system

    Significant improvements to the .RO domain names registration and management system

    RO TLD logo[news release] Beginning with the date 23rd of February 2013, a new .RO domain name registration service is put into service. This allows real time domain registration through the EPP and REST protocols.

    Also, have been added some new features to increase the security level of the domains management services, the registrar control panel and control panel for domain owners.

    The registrars who have not transmitted yet the IP addresses of the servers that want access to EPP, REST, DAS and control panel for registration and administration of the domains will not have access to the domains registration. ro until they provide this information to .RO registry, ICI-ROTLD.

    Important for the registrars

    The new .RO domain name registration system brings the following features to the old system:

    • The new system of registration and administration of the .RO domain names provides, in addition to the old version, EPP commands and REST reservation, activation of a domain, domain transfer commands from one registrar to another (transfer) and transfer right of use from one owner to another (TRADE);
    • Applications for registration of the new domains e-mailed by registrars will continue to be accepted but no longer to register the domains automatically, only to be reserved. Reserved domains will be activated by registrar from theirs control panel. In addition, the registrar, will be able to activate the reserved domains by the REST and EPP commands. We recommend that the registrars to activate the domain only after the receiving of the payment from the customer and is sure that the domain name can be activated. When activating domain, its price is deducted from the available registrar’s accounting balance at that point of time. After activating a domain, the payment is non-refundable;
    • The new registration system of the .RO domains names is associated only with the contacts belonging to the right to use owner of the domain name. To avoid the confusions of who have the right to administrate the .RO domain this is no longer associated with the technical contacts;
    • At the domain registration the registrar, will must specify the type of legal or natural person of the domain right of use owner.

    Important for the domain names owners

    To increase the protection level of the domain owner, new features have been added to the admin panel of the domains, as follows:

    • Any update operation of the contacts, create nameservers, addition or removal of nameservers associated with a domain name server is done only with the domain holder permission by sending an e-mail with an authorization key to the contact e-mail address. The operation will be finalized only after the domain holder is on the administration page and introduce the authorization key in the control panel. If the contact’s e-mail address does not work, the owner must update the domain contact e-mail address according the procedure from www.rotld.ro;
    • Were required new rules for the new passwords management of the domains as follows:
      • Must contain between 6 and 40 characters;
      • To not contain a space(blank character);
      • To contain at least an uppercase letter A-Z;
      • To contain at least an lowercase letter a-z;
      • To contain at least a number 0-9;
      • To contain at least a special character: – . , : ; [ ] { } _ + = @ # $ ^ * ? ! | ~

    This Ro TLD announcement was sourced from:
    www.rotld.ro/engleza/index_en.html