Global Domain Name and Internet Policy News
Ever wondered what the impact of registry fee increases for a top-level domain have on registrations? Afnic’s Loïc Damilaville has recently published a paper attempting to analyse the impact Verisign’s increases in the registry fee for .com and .net have had.
auDA has released a Request for Tender (RFT) for a backend registry operator for the .au ccTLD and the 4.2 million domain names under management.
It all started back in 2002 when Public Interest Registry launched the .org top-level domain and became the go to for organisations and individuals driven by important missions, who are seeking to make a difference in their communities and provide tangible solutions to the world’s biggest problems. Today there are 10.6 million .org domain names registered around the world.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) recently launched .auCheck to help internet users check their website, email and internet connections for use of the latest and most secure internet standards. It’s aimed at .au domain names but appears to be able to check domain names in any top-level domain. And the .au policy and regulatory body, auDA, and registry, Afilias, don’t come out well.
The number of .fr domain names grew 5.8% in 2021 to end the year with 3,882,448 to continue the ccTLD’s boost during the COVID pandemic, according to Afnic’s Report of .FR in 2021 released last week. This compares to 3,670,372 .fr domain names registered at the end of 2020 when growth was 7.0%. In pre-pandemic times, 2019, growth was 3.7%.
It is now possible to register Danish domain names with the German character ẞ – also called scharfes S or double-s.
Public Interest Registry has handed out three more of their 2020 .ORG Impact Awards to .ORG registrants that are connecting communities, making a difference, and utilising the internet to drive transformative change. There are ten awards in total, one handed out each day during their 10 Days of .ORG. The three latest winners are The Crisis Tracker, Mangrove Action Project and Food For Free.
The number of .uk domain names suspended dropped by 23% to 22,158 according to the latest update from Nominet on .uk domains suspended for criminal activity over the 12 months to October 2020. This is around 0.22% of the 10 million .uk domains currently registered.
It’s taken 20 years, and an 11 percent increase in cases filed in 2020, for the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center to registered its 50,000th “cybersquatting” case, covering almost 91,000 domain names, and involving parties from over 180 countries, the organisation announced this week.
Days for Girls International is the first of 10 winners in Public Interest Registry’s 2020 .ORG Impact Awards, winning the 2020 Combating Coronavirus category. Days for Girls is an incredible organisation providing health, feminine hygiene and education services for tens of thousands of women and girls in 144 countries worldwide. This year, in response to coronavirus, they launched two campaigns — Periods Don’t Pause for Pandemics and #Masks4Millions, which inspired over 3,500 people to register to make 1 million masks for those most in need.