Tag Archives: .RU

TLD/Registrar Updates: Detecting Fake .BE Web Shops; Afnic Reappointed .FR Registry; .NL COVID Bump Stays; .PY Turns 30; .РФ Photo Contest and Swedish Regulator Ends .SE Supervision plus Tucows Buys UNR

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.

Continue reading TLD/Registrar Updates: Detecting Fake .BE Web Shops; Afnic Reappointed .FR Registry; .NL COVID Bump Stays; .PY Turns 30; .РФ Photo Contest and Swedish Regulator Ends .SE Supervision plus Tucows Buys UNR

TLD Updates: EURid Carbon Footprint report and Web Awards Finalists, ICANN August ccNSO Newsletter, .TICKETS Relaunched and .RU/.РФ EBERO Backup

EURid might just be the greenest of all top-level domain registries. The .eu registry published its 2020 Carbon Footprint report Tuesday shows their steps to an even greener future based on the objective set within the EMAS framework.

Continue reading TLD Updates: EURid Carbon Footprint report and Web Awards Finalists, ICANN August ccNSO Newsletter, .TICKETS Relaunched and .RU/.РФ EBERO Backup

TLD Roundup: SHOP Hits One Million, 3 More New gTLDs Terminated, New T&Cs For .RU and .РФ, CIRA Announces $1.25M in Grants and DNS Belgium Explains Cyber Security Coalition Involvement

The .shop new gTLD announced in mid-July it passed the one million registrations mark, one of only six new gTLD’s that has surpassed the milestone. Aimed at online businesses/ecommerce, it launched in late September 2016 and took 15 months to reach the half million milestone and just over 3.5 years to reach the million.

Continue reading TLD Roundup: SHOP Hits One Million, 3 More New gTLDs Terminated, New T&Cs For .RU and .РФ, CIRA Announces $1.25M in Grants and DNS Belgium Explains Cyber Security Coalition Involvement

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

.BR Hits 4 Million Domain Name Registrations

Brazil’s ccTLD manager, NIC.br, announced [Portuguese only] Monday they’ve reached the 4 million registrations mark after ‘more than 25 years of flawless operation’.

There are over 120 second level domains under which .br domain names can be registered from blog.br and wiki.br for individuals to eng.br and adv.br for liberal professionals, tv.br and tur.br for legal persons, rio.br, sampa.br and curitiba.br for cities those reserved for specific purposes such as gov.br, jus.br, b.br and org.br among others. Some of these have as few as 10 registrations, while the largest, com.br has 3,645,125 accounting for 91.2% of all registrations.

According to the latest Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief, .br is the seventh largest country code top level domain (ccTLD). Verisign already had .br at 4 million domain name registrations at the end of 30 June, probably through rounding, up in this case, to the nearest hundred thousand. China’s ccTLD was the largest with 22.7 million followed by Tokelau’s free .tk (21.5m), Germany’s .de (16.3m), the United Kingdom’s .uk (12.0m), Russia’s .ru (5.9m), the Netherlands’ .nl (5.8m). Following .br is the European Union’s .eu (3.8m), France’s .fr (3.2m) and rounding out the top 10 is Italy’s .it (3.1m).

Revenues from .br registrations allow NIC.br to, in addition to providing and maintaining the infrastructure behind .br, invest in a series of actions and projects that generate benefits and improvements to the internet infrastructure in Brazil. These include the operation of internet traffic exchange points, which promote the interconnection of networks that form the Internet in Brazil, reducing distances and costs; the handling security incidents and tracking internet statistics.

Nic.br notes that other advantages of registering .br domain names include additional security features, such as token and encryption, that strengthen both the accounts of Registro.br users, and their respective domains. There is another recent feature: a redirection feature that lets you point a .br domain to any URL, whether it’s on a website or the preferred channel on social networks, keeping identities and active tags on the Internet permanently. Servers distributed by Brazil and other regions of the world guarantee speed and reliability in the resolution of .br and a team exclusively dedicated to meet and assist users in their doubts complete the description.

New gTLDs Plummet, .NET Slides, While .COM and ccTLDs Continue To Grow: Verisign DNIB

The growth in domain names was once upon a time not so many years ago on a sharp upward trajectory. But over the last couple of years that growth has slowed dramatically, with registrations growing 1.0% in the year to the end of the first quarter in 2018, or 3.2 million, to approximately 333.8 million domain name registrations across all top level domains, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief from Verisign for the first quarter of 2018. For the quarter, registrations grew approximately 1.4 million, or 0.4%, compared to the fourth quarter of 2017.

This growth compares to the year to the end of the first quarter of 2010 when domain name registrations grew by 11 million, or 6%, or the year to the end of the first quarter of 2017 when registrations grew 11.8 million, or 3.7%.

Total country-code top level domain (ccTLD) registrations were approximately 146.3 million at the end of the first quarter of 2018, with an increase of approximately 0.2 million domain name registrations, or 0.1%, compared to the fourth quarter of 2017. ccTLDs increased by approximately 3.2 million domain name registrations, or 2.2%, year over year. This is a noticeable improvement on 12 months ago when the growth was 1.7% year over year. In the year to the end of the first quarter 2010 growth was 3.2%.

The .com and .net TLDs had a combined total of approximately 148.3 million domain name registrations in the domain name base at the end of the first quarter of 2018, with an increase of approximately 1.9 million domain name registrations, or 1.3%, compared to the fourth quarter of 2017.

The .com and .net TLDs had a combined increase of approximately 4.6 million domain name registrations, or 3.2%, year over year. As of 31 March, the .com domain name base totalled approximately 133.9 million domain name registrations, up from 128.4 million 12 months ago, while the .net domain name base totalled approximately 14.4 , down from 15.2 million 12 months ago.

New .com and .net domain name registrations totalled approximately 9.6 million at the end of the first quarter of 2018, compared to 9.5 million domain name registrations for the first quarter of 2017.

Total new generic top level domain (new gTLD) domain name registrations were approximately 20.2 million at the end of the first quarter of 2018, with a decrease of 0.4 million domain name registrations, or 2.0%, compared to the fourth quarter of 2017. New gTLDs decreased by approximately 5.3 million domain name registrations, or 20.7%, year over year.

Among the top 10 TLDs, the first 7 are the same as one year ago – .com is the largest followed by .cn (China – 21.4 million), .tk (Tokelau – 19.9m), .de (Germany – 16.3m), .net (14.4m), .uk (United Kingdom – 12.0m) and .org (10.3m). In eighth place was .info (6.2m) followed by .ru (Russian Federation – 6.1m) and .nl (Netherlands – 5.8m). In 2017 places 8 to 10 consisted of .ru, .nl and .xyz.

In their report Verisign note that their figures include domain names in the .tk ccTLD. .tk is a free ccTLD that provides free domain names to individuals and businesses. Revenue is generated by monetising expired domain names. Domain names no longer in use by the registrant or expired are taken back by the registry and the residual traffic is sold to advertising networks. As such, there are no deleted .tk domain names.

This article can be read with images at:
http://www.domainpulse.com/2018/06/15/new-gtlds-plummet-net-slides-while-com-and-cctlds-continue-to-grow-verisign-dnib/

Global Domain Registrations Climb Up, But .NET and New gTLDs Slide Down: Verisign

Global domain name registrations continue to rise, with approximately 332.4 million registrations at the end of 2017 across all top level domains, according to the latest Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief out today. The increase for the fourth quarter was approximately 1.7 million domain names, or 0.5%, from the third quarter and 3.1 million, or 0.9%, year over year.

Within this slight increase there are notable declines – that of .net which declined to 14.5 million at the end of December from 15.0 million at the end of the third quarter and 15.3 million at the end of 2016. Five years ago at the end of 2012 there were 14.9 million .net registrations.

There was also a decline in the total number of new generic top level domains (new gTLDs) registrations. Among the new gTLDs there were approximately 20.6 million registrations, or 6.2% of total registrations across all TLDs. This was a decrease of approximately 0.5 million registrations, or 2.4% for the quarter, and approximately 5.0 million registrations (19.5%) year over year. The top 10 ngTLDs represented 48.9% of all new gTLD registrations.

But of course there were increases. The big behemoth, .com, saw registrations rise to 131.9 million at the end of 2017 compared to 130.8 million 3 months earlier, 126.9 million 12 months ago and 106.2 million at the end of 2012.

Total country code top level domain (ccTLD) registrations were approximately 146.1 million, a 1.0% increase over the third quarter of 2017, and a 2.4% increase year over year. Registrations at the end of the third quarter of 2017 were 144.7 million, 142.7 million 12 months ago and 110.2 million 5 years ago when the 12 month growth rate for ccTLDs was 21.6% in 12 months.

Without including .tk, ccTLD registrations increased approximately 0.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2017, a 0.5% increase compared to the third quarter of 2017 and ccTLDs increased by approximately 2.3 million registrations, or 1.8%, year over year.

The top 10 ccTLDs as of 31 December were .cn (China), .tk (Tokelau), .de (Germany), .uk (United Kingdom), .ru (Russian Federation), .nl (Netherlands), .br (Brazil), .eu (European Union), .fr (France) and .au (Australia). As of the end of 2017, there were 302 global ccTLD extensions delegated in the root, including Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs), with the top 10 ccTLDs composing 65.5 percent of all ccTLD domain name registrations.

New .com and .net domain name registrations totalled 9.0 million during the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to 8.8 million for the fourth quarter in 2016 and 8.0 million 5 years earlier in 2012.

Global Domain Name Growth Continues at a Crawl in Second Quarter

It was only a few years ago that the growth in the number of domain names registered around the world was in the 5 to 10% range every year, sometimes even higher. Today however that growth has slowed to a crawl as many markets around the world reach maturity, even saturation.

In the 12 months to the end of June domain name registrations grew by 6.7 million, or 2.1%, year over year, to a total of 331.9 million domain names across all top level domains according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief from Verisign. For the second quarter of 2017, registrations grew approximately 1.3 million equating to a growth rate of 0.4% over the first quarter.

The .com and .net top level domains had a combined total of approximately 144.3 million domain name registrations as of the end of June. This represents a 0.8% increase year-on-year. There were 129.2 million .com registrations and 15.1 million .net registrations.

New .com and .net domain name registrations totalled 9.2 million during the second quarter of 2017. In the second quarter of 2016, new .com and .net domain name registrations totalled 8.6 million.

Compared to previous years, the global year-on-year growth across all TLDs for the 12 months to 30 June in 2009 was 9%, to 30 June 2012 it was 11.9%, 5.9% to 30 June 2015 and 12.9% to 30 June 2016.

The top 10 TLDs as of the end of June for selected years with total registrations where published in Verisign’s DNIB were:

 

  June 2017 June 2016 June 2015 June 2012 June 2009
1. .com – 129.2million .com – 127.5m .com – 118.5m .com – 103.7m .com
2. .cn (China) – 21.4m .tk .tk .de .cn
3. .tk (Tokelau) – 19.1m .cn .de .net – 14.8m .de
4. .de (Germany) – 16.2m .de .net – 15m .tk .net
5. .net – 15.1m .net – 15.8m .cn .uk .org
6. .uk (United Kingdom) – 10.7m .org .uk .org .uk
7. .org – 10.4m .uk .org .info .info
8. .ru (Russian Federation) – 6.4m .xyz .ru .nl .nl
9. .info – 5.9m .ru .nl .ru .eu (European Union)
10. .nl (Netherlands) – 5.7m .nl .info .cn .biz

Total ccTLD registrations were approximately 144.2 million in the second quarter of 2017, with an increase of 1.1 million, or a 0.8% increase compared to the first quarter of 2017. ccTLDs increased by approximately 3.7 million registrations, or 2.6%, year over year. Without including .tk who gives away its domain names for free, ccTLD domain name registrations increased approximately 603,000 in the second quarter of 2017, a 0.5% increase compared to the first quarter of 2017 and ccTLDs increased by approximately 3.8 million registrations, or 3.1%, year over year.

As of 30 June there were 302 global ccTLD extensions delegated in the root, including Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs), with the top 10 ccTLDs composing 64.8% of all ccTLD registrations.

Registrations among the new generic top level domains totalled 24.3 million, which represents 7.3% of total domain name registrations. The top 10 new gTLDs represented 61.5% of all new gTLD registrations.

To read this story with images, see:
http://www.domainpulse.com/2017/09/15/global-domain-name-growth-a-crawl-second-quarter/

Verisign Report Shows Significant Slowing of Domain Registration Growth

Once upon a time not that many years ago, the growth in domain name registrations each year was like growth in the Chinese economy – well over 10%. These days the growth rate overall is nothing to be sneezed. In the year to the end of March, registrations around the world grew by 3.7% (11.8 million) to 330.6 million across all top level domains (TLDs) according to the latest Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief. It was only in the preceding year, to the end of March 2016, that registrations had grown 11%.

OK, Verisign add a proviso when looking back on registrations for registrations to the end of March 2016 for the .tk (Tokelau) country code top level domain (ccTLD) with a significant re-estimation downwards of its zone file size. As a result total global domain name registrations were changed from 326.4 million to 318.8 million. However these 10%+ annual registration increases were standard for several years.

The change in of annual registration increases of below 5% though are likely to be standard for some years to come as the significant growth is coming from ccTLDs in developing countries and within new gTLDs, although even here due to some new gTLDs such as .xyz having hugely discounted promotions, renewal rates are very low and even declining. However in total new gTLD registrations have stabilised around the 27 million mark for the last 6 weeks according to nTLDstats.com. As of 31 March new gTLD registrations were near their peak of 29.1 million. They peak at 29.4 million in mid-April.

For the quarter, registrations grew only 0.4% (1.3 million) to 31 March, which indicated an even greater slowdown in registration growth.

The .com and .net TLDs had a combined total of approximately 143.6 million domain name registrations in the domain name base in the first quarter of 2017 – 128.4 million for .com and 15.2 million for .net. This represents a 0.8% increase year over year, almost entirely due to increase in .com.

Among ccTLDs, .cn (China) has regained the crown of the largest and now has 21.4 million registrations to be the second largest of all TLDs while .tk has 18.6 million with .de (Germany) next with 16.2 million. Following in the top ten TLDs is .net then .uk (United Kingdom – 10.6m), .org (10.4m), .ru (Russian Federation – 6.4m), .nl (Netherlands – 5.7m) and then the largest of the new gTLDs, .xyz (5.6m).

Growth in ccTLDs was only 0.3% for the quarter, or 408,242 registrations, and 1.7% (2.4 million) for the year. Without including .tk, ccTLD domain name registrations increased approximately 568,242 in the first quarter of 2017, a 0.5 percent increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2016 and ccTLDs increased by approximately 4.6 million domain name registrations, or 3.9 percent, year over year.

At the end of the first quarter there were 294 global ccTLD extensions delegated in the root, including Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs), with the top 10 ccTLDs composing 64.7 percent of all ccTLD domain name registrations.

For the new gTLDs registrations totalled 25.4 million as of 31 March, 7.7% of total domain name registrations. The top 10 new gTLDs represented 64.1% of all new gTLD domain name registrations.

Volume 14, Issue 2, of the Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief is available for download from:
http://www.verisign.com/assets/domain-name-report-Q12017.pdf

An archive of recent reports is available from:
http://www.verisign.com/en_US/domain-names/dnib/domain-name-industry-brief-reports/index.xhtml

.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.