News


The first anniversary of the Cyrillic .СРБ domain
The registration of Cyrillic Internet .СРБ domain names started on 27 January 2012, resulting in more than 6,800 domain names of this type that have been registered in the course of one year. Since there are currently over 77,000 .RS domain names, the above number shows that the .СРБ domain managed to reach almost 10% of what its "older brother" had achieved. Considering the insufficient use of the Cyrillic alphabet in our society, this represents quite a satisfactory result.
The decision of the Register of National Internet Domain Names of Serbia (RNIDS) to introduce a Cyrillic national Internet domain actually represented a realization of the constitutional right of the citizens of Serbia to use the official alphabet for their Internet domain names. Showing due respect to their national alphabets, 23 countries have already reached the same decision; all the largest countries in the world that do not use the Latin alphabet happen to be among them (Russia, China and India), as well as many Arab and Asian ones. As some of these countries officially use several languages and alphabets, there are currently 33 domains with internationalized names (Internationalized Domain Name - IDN), i.e. domain names written using other than the English alphabet.
Our .СРБ domain has one specific advantage – it is the only Internet domain in the world that allows website addresses to be written exactly the way they are pronounced. Thanks to the characteristic of the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet where each phoneme has its own letter-counterpart, the.СРБ domain name addresses – as opposed to the multitude of domain names written in the English alphabet – are unequivocally pronounced exactly the way they are written. Free registration of.СРБ domain names began on 1 August 2012; from that day on, anyone living in Serbia or abroad was able to register their first and last names, family names or nicknames, names of their organizations or companies, or any other terms that reminded them of Serbia or tied them to it as their Cyrillic Internet domain names, with letters “.СРБ“ at the end of the address.
Certain technical issues that were present at the time when .СРБ domain names were introduced have now been eliminated. At the request of RNIDS, for example, Internet browser Firefox provided a correct presentation of Cyrillic .СРБ domain names and officially announced that it had corrected the bug in their program.
More information on .СРБ domain names: њњњ.срб (in Serbian only)
More information on IDNs: www.icann.org/en/resources/idn


.CA takes on a French accent
CIRA now supports
the use of all French characters in .CA domain names, allowing Canadians to
register their .CAs correctly in both official languages for the first time.
Previously, the only characters that could be used in a .CA domain name were the letters a-z, the numbers 0-9 and hyphens. When a domain name works with any characters beyond these, it’s called an Internationalized Domain Name (IDN). It is now possible for French .CA domain names to be spelled with the language’s full range of characters and ligatures: é, ë, ê, è, â, à, æ, ô, œ, ù, û, ü, ç, î, ï, ÿ.
Read further..


AFNIC Scientific Council shares report on DNS-based Internet filtering
While Internet filtering using the DNS (Domain Name System) is often cited in the fight against cybercrime and serves as input material for discussions on net neutrality, the AFNIC Scientific Council has studied the technique, the means for implementing it, the theoretical extent to which its objectives are met and the collateral effects it may or may not cause.
As an Internet registry operator, AFNIC is responsible for the effective functioning of DNS resolution under the .fr, .re, .tf, .wf and .yt Internet zones. The registry plays an active role in the international bodies involved in discussing, standardizing Internet core protocols.
The study by the AFNIC Scientific Council shows that DNS filtering is a technique that can theoretically be used to relocate the decision to authorize or prohibit the access to a domain name at the level of the country or a telecom operator. Circumventing these measures is technically simple, however.
The adoption of technologies such as DNSSEC could also be disrupted. Finally, the effectiveness of the measures usually advocated to bolster confidence in e-commerce sites, including checking the URL in the browser bar, would be diminished.
This therefore indicates that the collateral effects of large-scale implementation of DNS-based filtering on Internet security are extensive. Its effects could permanently weaken the trust seals on which users rely today.
Download the report of the AFNIC Scientific Council: Consquences of DNS-based Internet filtering


The .CZ Domain Celebrates Its 20th Birthday
Prague, 10 January 2013 – On Sunday, 13 January 2013, it will be exactly 20 years since the family of top-level national domains was extended by the .CZ suffix. It was established as a replacement for the .CS domain, which had been in operation from 1991 and expired with the split-up of former Czechoslovakia. According to the statistics of the CZ.NIC Association, the administrator of the Czech domain since 1999, there are over 1,012,000 registered Internet addresses ending in .CZ today.
“.CZ is by far the most widely used top-level domain in the Czech Republic. This is primarily the result of two breakthrough developments, the first being the relaxation of rather strict registration rules in 1997. After this decision, domains could also be registered by individuals. Ten years later, CZ.NIC deployed FRED, its own system for domain administration and registration, which has made the registration process much faster and cheaper. Since then, there have been about 10,000 new domains registered every month,” says Ondřej Filip, Executive Director of the CZ.NIC Association.
According to the latest comprehensive statistics available to the CZ.NIC Association, the share of domains held by individuals is gradually increasing, today accounting for 58% of all .CZ domains. Most holders own only one domain; the largest number of .CZ domains registered to one holder is 4,054.In terms of regional distribution, the most holders are from Central Bohemia, the least from the Karlovy Vary region.
A content analysis of 1,200 randomly selected websites in the .CZ domain showed that the greatest number of sites are company websites (41 percent), followed by parked domains (19 percent), e-shops and idle domains (8 percent). Seven percent of domains are private websites.
Go to Original Article


December Monthly Roundup Available
The December edtition of the CENTR Monthly Roundup magazine is now available. The newsletter gives a monthly snapshot of the CENTR membership of ccTLD Registries with a focus on news and statistics. This month includes;
- Overview of European ccTLD news
- Short Summary of the recent CENTR A-Level Survey 2012
- Median Growth rates of European ccTLDs
- WCIT Dubai Update
- Upcoming CENTR events
Click to download the newsletter


ICANN selects .SE as provider of Pre-Delegation Testing services for new gTLD Program
Press release 2012-12-22
ICANN has selected .SE as the provider of Pre-Delegation Testing services for the new gTLD Program. The purpose of the Pre-Delegation Testing is to verify that the applicant has met its commitment to establish registry operations in accordance with the technical and operational criteria described in the gTLD Applicant Guidebook (AGB). Each applicant will be required to complete Pre-Delegation Testing as a prerequisite to delegation into the root zone.
ICANN’s announcement
http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-21dec12-en.htm
For more information, please contact:
Maria Ekelund, Head of Communiationskommunikationschef
Phone: + 46 70 777 44 87
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
About .SE
.SE (The Internet Infrastructure Foundation) is an independent public-service organization that acts to promote the positive development of the Internet in Sweden. .SE is responsible for the Internet’s Swedish top-level domain, .se, encompassing domain-name registration, and the administration and technical operation of the national domain name registry. Proceeds from domain-name registrations are used to finance initiatives that promote the development of the Internet in Sweden, through proprietary operations and the financing of independent projects.


CENTR Report on WCIT
CENTR has published its report on the WCIT conference held in Dubai recently.
Go to the report here


CENTR A-level survey 2012
The processing of the results of the 2012 CENTR A-level survey is done. Since 2002, every 2 or 3 years the CENTR A-level survey gives an insight on the organization and main policy rules of the registries in the CENTR community. A record number of 50 members participated to the CENTR A-level survey.
One of the eye catchers in the report is the high number of DNSSEC deployments planned for 2013. By the end of next year 42 of the 50 registries in the survey will have launched DNSSEC; that is 85%.
Much more in the report which is available at http://centr.org/Survey_2012-A_Level_Survey . (members only)


CENTR.ORG secured with DNSSEC
CENTR’s request to sign centr.org was the impetus for Openminds to prioritize the planned upgrade of its infrastructure and so become one of the first Belgian hosting companies allowing its clients to add security extensions to their domain names.
More about DNSSEC:
Their customers include medium to large SME's, government (all levels) etc. They host some of the largest B2B e-commerce sites in Belgium, some of the most popular blogs and support the best and brightest web-agencies in Belgium.


Nominet appoints Chief Operating Officer
Eleanor Bradley has been appointed to the role of Chief Operating Officer.
In recognition of the breadth of her new responsibilities, Eleanor has joined the Nominet Board taking a seat that was previously vacant.
Nominet congratulates Eleanor on her new role, which will focus on ensuring we continue to deliver excellence in both our operational and corporate services.
The Communique from the November Board meeting has also now been published.