Entries tagged with “cctlds” from Domains / Internet Technology News - DNS News

2010 is the year that .com celebrates 25 years, but it's also the year the .uk marks a quarter of a century.

Over 25 years the .uk namespace has grown and grown to become one of the most widely used addresses on the internet outside of .com

The growth pattern is quite interesting.

During the first 11 years only 26 thousand domains were registered. One million names were in the zone by February 2000, which then grew to 5 million by 2006.

There are currently over 8.5 million .uk domains!

If you're a fan of statistics you can see the latest numbers from the registry here

IEDR, the operator of the .ie ccTLD, has postponed its normal fortnightly purge until next Monday.

The registry operator normally conducts its deletions and suspensions of domains every second Friday, but has postponed this week's "run" until next Monday.

Switch, the registry operator for the Swiss ccTLD (.ch), has been the target of a scammer judging by emails they sent to registrants.

In the email the company underlines their stable position as registry operator and explains that another company has been trying to undermine them:

Email below:

You are receiving this e-mail because you have registered one or more .ch or .li domain names with SWITCH. At the moment, customers of SWITCH are being asked by third parties to transfer their domain name from SWITCH to a different supplier. The reason given for this is that it will soon no longer be possible to register domain names with SWITCH.

In order to prevent any misunderstandings and uncertainty, we would like to correct this misinformation as follows:

SWITCH registers and administers the .ch domain names on behalf of the Swiss Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM). The contract between SWITCH and OFCOM runs until 2015. It is possible for the contract to be renewed. You are thus in good hands with SWITCH and do not need to take any action.

With the setting up of our subsidiary switchplus, we have laid the foundations for the future - independently of our contract with OFCOM and its renewal. switchplus already offers e-mail and web hosting in addition to the registration of domain names.

As an independent foundation, SWITCH has established the internet for the Swiss universities in Switzerland. We make a key contribution to the stability of the internet and offer high-quality services for universities and third parties.

If you have any questions, our helpdesk will always be pleased to assist you.

With kind regards,

SWITCH Internet Domains

It's that time of the year again - Nominet election time!

This year there aren't any elections for the policy board, as they've changed how it's composed.

So the elections this time round are for the board.

In typical fashion, however, some of the candidates have managed to make a relatively banal election a bit more interesting ..

Check Andrew Bennett's blog for more details - this has also spilled over onto the members' forum, Twitter, Acorn Domains and a private mailing list.

AFNIC, the body that runs .fr, is currently conducting a survey about people's views on the .fr domain extension.

The survey covers a number of areas including people's perception of .fr and what kind of services they expect to get with a .fr domain name.

UPDATE: It transpires that the survey was not meant to be public!

Nominet, the registry operator that manages *.uk, is planning on releasing both single and two character domain names.

In common with a lot of other ccTLD registry operators, Nominet had blocked single and two character domain names from being registered. However they are now planning on releasing them to the public in a phased plan.

The exact details of "how" the domains will become available have not been decided, which is why the registry is now conducting a consultation period with the public.

The current proposal is not drastically different to the kind of methodology used by several of the gTLD registry operators to handle similar scenarios, although there are a few extra twists. To start with Nominet is speaking of the entire project in terms of "cost recovery", whereas other registries have used this kind of release as a revenue generator. The other thing which is quite interesting is how they plan to differentiate based on the second level ie. org.uk domains, according to their proposal, should be given to charities and not for profits, while co.uk should go to business users. While this is very logical it's still interesting to note that they've "gone back to basics" in some respects.

You can view full details of what Nominet are planning on their site and share your thoughts.

It will be interesting to see how the Nominet registrars and the public react to this news.

The ICANN meeting in Nairobi starts officially next Monday. However, as is normally the case, by the time Monday rolls around people will already have been working since Saturday morning (if not earlier).

All ICANN meetings seem to be surrounded by some bit of controversy and excitement, but the Nairobi meeting is possibly more dramatic than many others. The last attempt to hold a meeting in Nairobi failed, with ICANN opting to hold the meeting near LA's airport, LAX, instead. This time round there was quite a bit of controversy and tension surrounding the meeting's location.

The end result of the tension, security worries and everything else is that quite a large number of people who would normally attend the meeting will be staying at home.

Others will be travelling to Reston, VA, where Neustar has organised a US offsite location. Though with the time difference between VA and Nairobi anyone in attendance will end up working through the night!

So what's on the agenda?

New TLDs - this time round the focus will be on "EOI" - the concept of "expressions of interest" that was mooted at the last meeting in Seoul.

DNS SEC will be on the agenda again, but getting excited about it is far from easy - sorry!

IPv4 depletion will probably get a look in, but it's still a "hard sell". Until ISPs "buy in" and start deploying v6 on their public networks it's going to be nigh on impossible to make any tangible or meaningful movement in this area.

IDN ccTLDs. You can expect updates from the various countries that have applied using the "fast track". There might be more applications from other countries, as the meeting will have attracted its usual media circus.

But the real "hot potato" for ICANN is going to be .xxx

Following on from the recent decision which found that ICANN had "dropped the ball", the ICANN board will be voting on the Friday of the public meeting.

In reality you can expect to see board members being canvassed / briefed / harassed by interested parties pretty much all week. How will they vote?

Will the US government try to intervene?

If ICANN do move ahead with .xxx, will that have any impact on new TLDs?

If ICANN's board doesn't move ahead with .xxx this time round there is little or no chance that Stuart Lawley and ICM Registry are going to throw in the towel.

To start with they've no reason to. They have just won a legal battle that shows that ICANN was in the wrong. Sure, it may not be "binding", but any decision that so much as casts a doubt on ICANN's processes and procedures is a "win" for ICM - and rightly so.

So how would ICANN fare if ICM were to pursue this through to the next level?

ICANN stakeholders probably don't want to see their money being poured down a legal drain .. I know I don't ..

SIDN, the registry operator for .nl (Netherlands) have launched their new site.

The new look site gives the registry a complete visual facelift.

You can find it here.

Nominet held an EGM yesterday.

The EGM was called to make changes to Nominet's constitution.

Members voted overwhelmingly in favour of the changes, so it will be now a matter of seeing what Nominet plans to do with these new powers.

One of the areas that would be of particular to both registrars and registrants involves pricing. While the cost per annum of a co.uk domain is not at issue, the previous version of the registry's constitution meant that it could not easily introduce multi-year registrations for terms from 1 year to 10.

From a registrar perspective it would make a lot of sense to be able to offer domain name registrations for the same period across multiple TLDs ie. if a registrant wanted the .com and the co.uk then they could choose to register both domains for the same registration period.

More information on the EGM is available on the Nominet site

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SIDN, the registry operator for .nl, has announced the introduction of a new service for its registrars. The new phishing alert service harnesses data provided by Netcraft and will automatically email the registrar of record of any .nl domain name that is flagged as being used in a phishing attack.

Every five minutes or so, SIDN checks Netcraft's suspect URL database,
which is constantly being updated. Every time a .nl URL is added to the
database, an e-mail message is automatically sent to the relevant
registrar's administrative contact e-mail address. In other words, the
system does not rely on periodic reporting, but on almost immediate
individualised e-mail contact. It therefore provides a basis for very
rapid intervention. The service is due to enter use on February 15,
2010.

Message content
The e-mail sent to draw a registrar's attention to the fact that a
client is running a website that may be fraudulent will include the
following information:

- Suspected phishing site URL
- Host: the IP address of the system running the website
- Country: the country of origin of the IP address
- Date: the date and time that the suspect site was detected
- Target: the name of the company that seems to be targeted

SIDN are conscious of the danger of such a service and warn registrars that there may be false alarms.

It will be interesting to see how registrars and the wider internet community react to the introduction of this service.

Nominet has joined the ranks of those registry operators who have embraced the much vaunted and possibly hyped, "social media".

In the last few weeks the UK registry operator has started using two Twitter accounts and its Facebook page to interact with its members (and other interested parties).

Based on member feedback they have also started sending out technical notifications via email to supplement their existing RSS feeds.

On Twitter they are using:

@Nominet - seems to be general Nominet news and interaction
@NominetTech - technical service announcements

You can find their facebook presence here.

Obviously both the Facebook and Twitter presences are accessible to both Nominet members and members of the public, while other fora, such as the private member forum, are not.

Hopefully these new efforts towards public engagement will have a positive impact on the registry.

I don't normally do this, but I was feeling a bit "naughty" this morning, so here you go ..


Over at Blacknight we've just launched a "silly" promo on .be registrations and transfers. We're also running several other domain discount promotions at the moment, so if you want to switch provider, save money or register *that* domain  .. now's the time!

(Normal blogging will resume later .. )

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AFNIC, which runs the .fr registry, has published its Action Plan for 2010.

While the "old chestnut" of DNSSEC is on the agenda (no surprise there!), there's also reference to a change in the registration rules.

Under the current registration rules registrants need to supply an address in France.
The proposed change is intended to open up registration to all French nationals regardless of their place of residence.

So does this leave the door open for a wider change?

Are we likely to see non-French nationals being able to register .fr domains without having to "jump through hoops"?

The current situation is more than a little frustrating. If a non-French company or individual wants to register a .fr domain, regardless of their motives, the registry rules render the registration incredibly difficult. While other ccTLD registries may have restrictive rules, in most instances there are relatively "sane" ways to navigate them.

It's not clear from the document that has been published what the registry's exact plans are in this area, but any change and progress in this area should be welcomed.

According to the document the plan would need to be voted on by the board in November.

The original text is available via the AFNIC site.

AFNIC's latest online and TV campaign to promote .fr may not be the most amusing thing you'll ever see, but it's still amusing to a point.

Here's the long version of their advert:



In French - sorry ! Subtitles available!

The "go live" for .cm has been announced (again!)

This time round the date and time are:

September 18, 2009 at 08:00am UTC

According to an email sent out earlier this morning Netcom, who run .cm, have moved the registry platform outside COCCA and are running their own version. Whether they have managed to resolve the stability issues that were of concern to COCCA is not clear.

The Swiss ccTLD operator, Switch, has announced the launch of a new company and service called "SwitchPlus".

The new entity is a wholly owned subsidiary of Switch and is aimed at providing a range of services that would, essentially, compete against the registry operator's clientele - namely registrar, hosting providers and IT service companies.

The Swiss operator claims that this move is to protect its staff:

In launching switchplus, SWITCH is also making a key contribution towards securing its own future in the field of internet domains. The contract with the Swiss Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) for the registration of domain names runs until 2015. It is uncertain whether a follow-on contract will come into being at all - and, if so, what form it will take. This situation constitutes a substantial risk for SWITCH - firstly in terms of its revenues and secondly as regards the jobs of its employees working in this area. For that reason, SWITCH must take steps today already to secure the future of its Internet Domains business.

If I were based in Switzerland I would not be overly impressed by this move.

All registry operators have maintenance windows. In some cases they last a few minutes, while in others they can last a few hours.

But DK Hostmaster has to "take the biscuit".

They're shutting down all operations for a full 24 hours! While existing domains will continue to function as normal, the registry will be closed for all other operations for a full 24 hours.

Is this some new record?

Here's the email they sent out to nameserver managers:

"In connection with an upgrade of the DK Hostmaster systems, a number of
services, including the redelegation option, will shut down for 24 hours.
For further details, see below.

On 30 August 2009, users of the DK Hostmaster website will benefit from an
improved self-service facility. Our website will have a new, user-friendly
design to match the upgraded self-service facility. At the same time, we
will be implementing a new ERP system with new functionality and a new
invoice layout. These initiatives will enable us to introduce new system
functionality to meet user requirements in the future.

Due to the upgrade, it will not be possible to use our systems from
Saturday, 29 August 2009 at 6 am to Sunday, 30 August 2009 at 6 am. The
facilities affected include:

.    Self-service
.    Payments
.    Waiting list
.    Redelegation of .dk domain names

It will still be possible to apply for new .dk domain names. The
applications will be received, time-stamped and given a track number as
usual, but no domain names will be created during this period. The name
service will not be affected, but changes to the DK zone will NOT be
processed."

For a country as advanced as Denmark to have a registry operator like this is truly amazing.
Unfortunately Afilias' bid to takeover the management of the DK registry failed, leaving the incumbent in place.

So what does a ccTLD operator do when they're worried about cashflow?

They go off and spend thousands on a glossy annual report obviously!



The IEDR's annual report and review for 2008 is the glossiest one they've produced to date. As usual it contains plenty of fluff while ignoring anything of substance.

In the Chairman's introductory statement they reveal that:

"The board has agreed terms of reference for a Policy Advisory Committee (PAC) to advise on .ie namespace policy matters, the membership to be representative of relevant stakeholder organisations"

Well that's charming.
The document that was being discussed between the IEDR and its resellers was firmly slanted in the IEDR's favour and had not been accepted by the reseller community.
So now it looks like the IEDR have done what they always do and unilaterally implemented a change without accepting feedback from the companies that pay their bills (registrars / resellers) or those that give them a raison d'etre (registrants).

Scanlan goes on to infer that the IEDR have been appointed as the registry operator for the .ie namespace permanently. This is not the case, unless whoever wrote the Comreg documents is a very bad communicator, which I somehow doubt.

Making repeated reference to the Comreg report is annoying, as Comreg did not actually publish the report of the external consultants. All that was published was the result of the public consultation - and even that was months behind schedule and did not reveal anything really meaty.

So what about the rest of this year's report?

Well it has got lots of plenty glossy photos of IE registrants (Why aren't they using this in publications that the public see???) there isn't a huge amount of substance.



The report states the following about the aftermarket which underlines the level of their ignorance

".. Furthermore, there is no secondary market for .ie domains, which reduces the incentive for 'domainers' to engage in cybersquatting and domain warehousing"

So all "domainers" are "cybersquatters"?

Why does the IEDR have such a ridiculous fear of the secondary market?

Other registry operators such as AFNIC, which also restricts registrations to some degree, do not see aftermarket activity in such negative terms.

It could also be argued that the registry's restriction on trade in domains is unlawful

One could also argue that the IEDR's current "managed registry" model, whatever that is exactly, contravenes Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

In case you're not familiar with that specific article here it is:

"ARTICLE 10

   1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. this right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.
   2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or the rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. "

Has anyone ever challenged the consitutionality of the IEDR's stance?

As a body that draws its powers from Comreg's regulation and Irish legislation it cannot continually use the excuse of being a private company.

But I still fail to see how the IEDR can justify the expense of a glossy report like this yet be incapable of communicating an important policy change to its stakeholders (sole traders may now register their surname). Spending money on improving their communications with stakeholders would appear to be a better way of investing their funds.

Do Comreg care enough to actually act?

Or will they sit idly by while the IEDR cherrypick which voices to hear and implement policy changes with little or no real input?

UPDATE: I've attached the full report (4.2 MB PDF):
IEDR AN Report 08-web.pdf

Nominet's AGM has been announced.

It will take place on Wednesday July 8th in the Hilton London Kensington

Two non-executive director seats are up for grabs...

More information on the AGM is available on the Nominet site