News
DomainWire (March 2014) Report Available
The latest of CENTRs 'DomainWire Stat Report' is available (Edition 7 - March 2014). The report provides a global status update on top level domains (both gTLDs and ccTLDs) with a focus on European ccTLDs.
Included in the report:;
- Global Status of Domain Names
- Top 20 ccTLDs list
- European ccTLD overview
- High growth ccTLDs for the quarter
- Article and stats on IDNs in Europe
Click to open the report
Guide to ICANN49
The CENTR Guide to ICANN49 (Singapore) meeting is now available and covers the week ahead for the ccNSO, GAC and GNSO. 
Open the Report
5th Serbian Internet Domain Day Conference Conference (Belgrade)
More than 260 visitors attended the fifth Serbian Internet Domain Day Conference (DIDS), organised by the Serbian National Register of Internet Domain Names (RNIDS) on 10th March 2014 at the Metropol Hotel.
DIDS is a conference that is held annually, focused on the development of the Internet globally and in the Serbian .RS and .СРБ domain spaces. This year the slogan was Domainisation, Socialisation, Good Location. The all-day program saw IT professionals from all sectors of the economy, Internet providers and accredited registrars come together with other local Internet users to hear the experiences of some twenty conference speakers from home and abroad.
The first conference block was dedicated to current global Internet trends. The Domainisation catchword referred to the introduction of more than 1000 new generic Internet domains (gTLDs), in multiple languages and scripts: .web, .caйt, .移动, . شبكة, .events, .works, .cool, .vision, .today, .company, .shop, .trend, .place, .guru, .blog, .sex and many others.
After Danko Jevtović, the Director of RNIDS gave introductory speech, the panel discussion on how new gTLDs will impact the market and what changes their introduction will bring has started. Michele Neylon, CEO of "Blacknight Internet Solutions", Ulrich Retzlaff, Director of Channel Management at the "Public Interest Registry .ORG", and Slobodan Marković, ICT Policies and Internet Community Relations Advisor at RNIDS concluded that the new generic domains are offering much greater choice to the public. How they will be used will depend primarily on the needs of users – on the content they plan to publish on their sites and whether they are targeting their national market or a global one.
The participants concluded that national TLDs are still the best choice for the national market, while generic domains are better used for sites addressing a global market, or some geographically non-specific market segment (e.g. using domains such as .events, .shop, .blog). There was also speculation as to how the new generic domains would be ranked in the Google results, since the search engine currently localises searches, giving ranking advantages to sites hosted on national domains. Vladimir Radunović, e-diplomacy educational and training programmes coordinator at the DiploFoundation moderated this panel which can be watched here.
In the second block called Socialisation, Nikolina Ljepava the director of development at the Ninamedia Agency, Radomir Basta CEO and lead SEO at the inbound marketing agency "Four Dots", Marija Petrović bloger and a photographer at the online food magazine ”Mezze.rs", and Martina Anđelković online community manager at the "Vibe Network" discussed the issues of promotion trough social networks and how it can boost web site visibility and brand recognition.
Additional topics were human behaviour on social networks, examples of best practice and ways to create a successful profile (how and when to publish posts, how to communicate directly with the community and etc). Ivana Ćirković the founder and the editor of the women’s portal www.organvlasti.com moderated this block.
The topic of the third block called Good Location were succesfull examples of domestic websites. In the session "The .СРБ Domain - Two Years Latter" our famous linguist Vlado Đukanović spoke about different interesting Internet locations on the cyrillic .СРБ domain. After this media websites such are: www.021.rs, www.prva.rs and www.posmatrac.rs were presented. The Internet communities that also drove public attention were: www.gdenapivo.rs, www.blogmagazin.rs, www.mozilla.rs, www.clubbing.rs and www.startit.rs. The domestic online shops such are www.avmarket.rs, www.beomob.rs, www.biospajz.rs and www.winwin.rs were also presented. Ivan Minić, the founder and the director of the "Burek.com" forum moderated the third panel.
You can read more detailed descriptions of the discussions and topics in articles written by the official bloggers of DIDS 2014 (Serbian only):
„Dan internet domena Srbije DIDS 2014“ by Vladimir Stanković - @DedaBor
„DIDS 2014: Šta donosi liberalizacija domena?“ by Una Zabunov - @unaunpaso
„Domenizacija, društvenizacija…" by Miloš Petrović - @MilosPetrovic
„LIVE: #DIDS2014 – Dan internet domena Srbije“ by Krsto Arsenijević - @krsto
You can find more about each of the speakers and their presentations in the site sections titled Schedule and Speakers.
The regional distribution of .de domains in Germany
DENIC, the registry for .de domains, presents the results of the regional domain statistics 2013. As at 31 December 2013, it includes about 14.5 million .de domains in the 402 cities and districts of Germany. Adding to these numbers are nearly one million domains of holders whose place of residence is abroad. In total, about 15.6 million .de domains were registered at the end of 2013. Domain development in 2013 was slightly slower than in the preceding years and confirmed the East-West divide of .de domain distribution.
Go to the full press release from DENIC
NTIA Announces Intent to Transition Key Internet Domain Name Functions
WASHINGTON – To support and enhance the multistakeholder model of Internet policymaking and governance, the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) today announces its intent to transition key Internet domain name functions to the global multistakeholder community. As the first step, NTIA is asking the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to convene global stakeholders to develop a proposal to transition the current role played by NTIA in the coordination of the Internet’s domain name system (DNS).
NTIA’s responsibility includes the procedural role of administering changes to the authoritative root zone file – the database containing the lists of names and addresses of all top-level domains – as well as serving as the historic steward of the DNS. NTIA currently contracts with ICANN to carry out the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions and has a Cooperative Agreement with Verisign under which it performs related root zone management functions. Transitioning NTIA out of its role marks the final phase of the privatization of the DNS as outlined by the U.S. Government in 1997.
“The timing is right to start the transition process,” said Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information Lawrence E. Strickling. “We look forward to ICANN convening stakeholders across the global Internet community to craft an appropriate transition plan.”
ICANN is uniquely positioned, as both the current IANA functions contractor and the global coordinator for the DNS, as the appropriate party to convene the multistakeholder process to develop the transition plan. NTIA has informed ICANN that it expects that in the development of the proposal, ICANN will work collaboratively with the directly affected parties, including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), the Internet Society (ISOC), the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), top level domain name operators, VeriSign, and other interested global stakeholders.
NTIA has communicated to ICANN that the transition proposal must have broad community support and address the following four principles:
- Support and enhance the multistakeholder model;
- Maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet DNS;
- Meet the needs and expectation of the global customers and partners of the IANA services; and,
- Maintain the openness of the Internet.
Consistent with the clear policy expressed in bipartisan resolutions of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives (S.Con.Res.50 and H.Con.Res.127), which affirmed the United States support for the multistakeholder model of Internet governance, NTIA will not accept a proposal that replaces the NTIA role with a government-led or an inter-governmental organization solution.
From the inception of ICANN, the U.S. Government and Internet stakeholders envisioned that the U.S. role in the IANA functions would be temporary. The Commerce Department’s June 10, 1998 Statement of Policy stated that the U.S. Government “is committed to a transition that will allow the private sector to take leadership for DNS management.” ICANN as an organization has matured and taken steps in recent years to improve its accountability and transparency and its technical competence. At the same time, international support continues to grow for the multistakeholder model of Internet governance as evidenced by the continued success of the Internet Governance Forum and the resilient stewardship of the various Internet institutions.
While stakeholders work through the ICANN-convened process to develop a transition proposal, NTIA’s current role will remain unchanged. The current IANA functions contract expires September 30, 2015.
NTIA Press release: link
Statement from the Internet Technical Leaders (I*) on the IANA Globalization Process
Internet Technical Leaders Welcome IANA Globalization Progress
The roles on policy development processes of the Internet technical organizations and ICANN's role as administrator of the IANA functions, remain unchanged
The transition of the US Government stewardship has been envisaged since the early days of IANA functions contract. This transition is now feasible due to the maturity of the Internet technical organizations involved in performing their respective roles related to the IANA functions, and ICANN will facilitate a global, multi-stakeholder process to plan for the transition.
The strength and stability of the IANA functions within the above organizations (which make up the Internet technical community) are critical to the operation of the Internet. The processes around the IANA functions have always been carefully specified in the communities that our organizations represent. The IANA functions are faithfully administered by ICANN. We are committed to continuing our proven, community-driven processes as we engage in this transition. Our communities are already considering proposals to progress the transition.
Participating Leaders
US Government announcement on IANA Globalization – Statement by the CENTR General Assembly
US Government announcement on IANA Globalization – Statement by the CENTR General Assembly
“The CENTR community acknowledges the statement by the United States Government in relation to the transition of the IANA stewardship.
The CENTR ccTLD community believes that IANA should be managed through an open, transparent and consistent multistakeholder model in which ccTLDs should continue to be actively involved.
In the long standing tradition of valuable and constructive cooperation with IANA, the ccTLDs will closely monitor IANA’s responsiveness, stability and reliability in delivering its technical and administrative service at the highest standard.
It is crucial that IANA remains accountable to the community it serves.”
CENTR, as one of the four ccTLD Regional Organisations, is committed to the dialogue within the I* group of organisations responsible for coordination of the different parts of the Internet technical infrastructure to finalize a proposal to progress the transition.
NTIA statement
CENTR statement (pdf)
More about CENTR
CENTR is the European association of Internet domain name registries. CENTR has over 50 members which account for a large share of the country code domain name registrations world wide. Each CENTR Full Member operates a country code top level domain such as .uk, .es or .be. In this capacity they play a pivotal role in the stability of the Domain Name System and the Internet.
Contact
Peter Van Roste, CENTR General Manager /
Afnic releases results of quality of service survey
- A net increase in Afnic’s overall satisfaction rating, rising from around 8/10 in 2012 to 8.2/10 in 2013;
- An overall satisfaction level of 99% (against 97% in 2012);
- can be trusted (99% of respondents agreed);
- is professional (98%);
- is customer-focused (94%);
- setting up new services: Registry Lock, Multi-Year Registration, etc.
- making more communication, training and promotional tools available to customers (presence at trade fairs, etc.)
- more interaction on new areas for economic development represented by the new gTLDs, etc.
CIRA bring domain name suggestion technology to Canadians
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is pleased to partner with DomainsBot to bring domain name suggestion technology to Canadians seeking to register a .CA website.
Domain name suggestion technology is known in the industry as “name spinning”. It is a tool that helps people looking for a website address by suggesting alternative variations of a word or term that they enter. It can help them sort through similar sounding options and more importantly, provide alternatives when a domain name is already taken.
“With over two million .CA domain names already registered, common nouns, common phrases, and personal names may not be available to the interested Registrant.” said Dave Chiswell, Vice President of Product Development at CIRA, “by enabling DomainsBot’s industry-leading name spinning technology we’re helping Canadians quickly and easily find a good name for their business, non-profit, or personal websites. This benefits the person registering the website because a good .CA name has been shown time and again, to be a critical factor in online success.”
Nominet to jointly host Commonwealth DNS forum
Nominet will jointly host the first ever Commonwealth DNS forum in London on 19 - 20 June 2014.
We will be holding the event with the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation, ICANN, and the Public Interest Registry.
The Commonwealth DNS Forum 2014 is designed to help representatives from across the Commonwealth to examine the economics, governance, and social impact of the domain name system as well as the role of multi-stakeholder partnerships in developing public policy.
The event will be opened by Commonwealth Secretary-General, Kamalesh Sharma and will be attended by more than 150 participants from across the Commonwealth.