Registrants of .fr domain names, and those in the overseas territory ccTLDs the French registry Afnic manage, will have a new and free dispute mediation process available to them from 3 July.
The United Kingdom left the European Union on 31 January 2020, but the 11 month transition period meant the UK was still bound by the EU’s rules. At the end of the transition period it was known businesses and citizens of the UK would lose the right to register .EU domain names. What very few realised was that due to the terms and conditions for .fr, they would lose the right to register and hold .fr domain names as well.
France’s ccTLD grew 3.7% in 2019, totalling 3,428,951 domain names under management as of 31 December, an increase of 123,655 in the 12 months according to Afnic’s Annual Report released this week. This makes .fr the ninth largest ccTLD in the world according to Verisign’s Domain Name Industry Brief.
As of 30 March, registrants of .fr (France) domains, along with other ccTLDs managed by AFNIC, will be able to choose registration periods of one to ten years.
Prior to this change, registrants of .fr domains had to renew their domains every 12 months.
As well as .fr, the changes also apply to the overseas French ccTLDs managed by AFNIC – .re (Reunion Island), .pm (St. Pierre and Miquelon), .tf (French Southern and Antarctic Territories), .wf (Wallis and Futuna), and .yt (Mayotte).
Afnic has announced new registration policies for the .fr (France), .re (Reunion Island), .yt (Mayotte), .wf (Wallis and Futuna), .tf (French Southern Territories) and .pm (Saint-Pierre and Miquelon). ccTLDs that come into force on 8 December.
The main changes in the registration policy are:
To find out more, see:
Single and two character domain names could be coming to .fr and other registries Afnic manages should the public consultation underway give the registry the green light.
The public consultation is aiming to work out a way forward and set up a procedure for the release of the domains. While the information provided is not specific, it appears the consultation not only covers .fr (France), but also .re (Reunion Island), .yt (Mayotte), .wf (Wallis and Futuna), .tf (French Southern Territories) and .pm (Saint-Pierre and Miquelon).
The consultation runs until 16 April 2013 and interested people are asked to comment on:
Comments can be given by completing the form available for download at www.afnic.fr/medias/documents/consultations/public-consultation-reply-form-short-names.pdf.
Afnic, the registry for .FR domain names along with a number of other French territories, has published its first Scope, the first of what they say will be regular publications of statistics on rulings handed down along with other key facts and figures.
The purpose of Scope on Syreli (Syreli is what Afnic is calling their dispute resolution system) is to summarise the procedureâs data and disseminate them as widely as possible. From now on, each month, new statistics and graphics will be posted on the Afnic website, in particular on:
And from November onwards, Scope on Syreli will focus on the key figures for the previous month.
Syreli, the Afnic dispute resolution system, was launched in November 2011 for domain names with the .FR and .RE extensions. As of 6 December, it also applies to the .TF, .YT, .PM and .WF ccTLDs.
The first Scope is published below:
On 3 July, anybody eligible to register a .FR domain name could register domains with 30 internationalised domain name characters, or diacritical marks, including é, è, ê and β.
The .RE, .YT, .PM, .WF and .TF ccTLDs are also covered by the new policy.
Afnic held a consultation and then sunrise period for existing registrants which led to .FR IDN names now being treated as any other.
During the sunrise period between 3 May and 3 July 2012 there were 11,541 domain names with diacritical marks registered. The 5 most popular new characters were as follows:
In the first few days since the launch on 3 July, 6,033 domain names with diacritical marks were registered. The 5 most popular new characters were as follows:
At least three and up to six companies have submitted bids to operate the .FR (France) ccTLD and the ten French territory ccTLDs currently managed by AFNIC.Bids were required to be submitted to the French Ministry of Industry by Friday for the 11 ccTLDs, and so far the current ccTLD manager AFNIC, along with l’Office d’enregistrement des extensions Internet françaises (“Office For The Registration Of French Internet Extensions” – a subsidiary of the Luxembourg-based OpenRegistry) and FRNIC have all publicly stated they have applied.In the bid by the current registry operator, AFNIC have said they have significant industry support with more than 660 organisations and individuals expressing support for them to retain the operation of the registry.Another of the applicants, FRNIC, a collaboration between FREE Foundation and the French registrar StartingDot, say they will invest all the profits of the organisation into developing the internet including the establishment of a foundation with €2.5 million over five years to be led by a scientific committee and to double the number of registered domain names between 2012 and 2017.StartingDot has also applied to ICANN for five new gTLDs they describe as being “dedicated to businesses in many important sectors so that they may optimise their visibility and align their internet address with the name of their business.”But the number of .FR domain names has been growing rapidly since registration rules were liberalised, leading to the ccTLD being one of the fastest growing in recent years, Matthieu Weill, AFNIC Director General, told Les Echos.The 11 ccTLD registries for which tenders have been requested by the French Ministry of Industry are:
On 11 May, AFNIC submitted its applications to manage the 11 French country code top level domains (ccTLDs) with the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry.
Following the publication in the Official Journal of the French Republic on 20 March calling for applications to manage the ccTLDs for France and its overseas territories, AFNIC officially applied to act as the registry for the following:
AFNIC also announced they received support from more than 660 parties for its applications to act as the registry for the ccTLDs, including:
More information on the AFNIC proposal to manage the 11 ccTLDs is available from the dedicated campaign website (only in French) at je-soutiens-afnic.fr.
To register your .FR domain, or for many of the other French ccTLDs, see Europe Registry here.
