Corporate domain name management - eBrand Services

Welcome to E-Brand Services monthly update of news regarding updates to country code and generic Top Level Domains (ccTLDs and gTLDs).

Nic.at Introduces Whois Privacy Changes Nic.at, the registry for .AT domain names, has introduced changes to its Whois privacy rules. As of 7 January 2010, phone numbers, fax numbers and email addresses are all hidden by default and any registrant wishing to show this information will have to choose to do so.

Annual Report 2009 of DNS BE Shows Another Record Year for Registrations The DNS BE Annual report 2009 is now available in three languages. Highlights include a 14 per cent net growth in the registration of .BE domain names; for the sixth year in a row there was a record number of new .BE domain names registered (232,746 in total,4.4% more than in 2008); as well as the demographics of registrants changing such as the number of domain names registered in Wallonia significantly increased and the ratio between private individuals and business – previously 30:70 – is now beginning to shift gradually in favour of private individuals. The annual report is available for download from www.dns.be.

ch/li: SWITCH successful in court action that prevented switchplus SWITCH, the registry for .CH and .LI domain names (Switzerland and Liechtenstein respectively) have won a court case against ten hosting providers who have been attempting for many months to prevent the market entry of switchplus – a subsidiary of SWITCH. A stop has now been put to this. The Commercial Court has lifted the precautionary ruling concerning the website switch.ch.

Domain Holders Shun China’s .CN Regulations requiring .CN domain owners to show business licenses and photo IDs to Chinese authorities prompted a drop-off in new and renewing registrations, noted a report in Information Week. The report also notes the declining number of .CN registrations has led to it dropping from second most popular TLD (and most popular ccTLD) to the fourth most popular TLD (and second most popular ccTLD).

Disputes concerning domain .CZ follow new Rules Predictable tariff scale of the Arbitration Court, opportunity to have three arbitrators involved in the proceedings and better online platform for the settlement of disputes are the main new features in the Rules for the settlement of disputes concerning .CZ domains. CZ. The registry notes that probably the most important change is a new system for calculating the fees for proceedings.

In addition, as of 4 June, internet access providers in the Czech Republic can test NSEC3, a new version of the DNSSEC technology, on their DNS resolvers.

DENIC Upgrades .DE Public-Whois in Test Environment After a comprehensive revision, a new version of the public-whois information query service has been available for public testing in the test environment whois.test.denic.de since 2 June 2010. According to current planning, the new whois is scheduled to replace the current whois server (whois.denic.de) on 29 June 2010.

DENIC have been consulting on the implementation with their third DNSSEC test bed meeting held that covered a kaleidoscope of hot topics and questions all around the protocol extension DNSSEC and the persistent great interest of the Internet community made the third .de DNSSEC test bed meeting at the premises of DENIC another success.

ECO: A battle for online naming rights New generic Top Level Domains have gained the attention of The Financial Times that looks at .ECO and how those who originally had the idea saw their business disappear from under their eyes. And also looks at Canon who are one of the very few multinational companies to announce they will apply for their own gTLD. The article is available from www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a4da0d2e-798b-11....

Changes to .EE domain name registration policies The Estonian Internet Foundation set a deadline for the transition to new domain rules of 5 July 2010. The new domain regulation will make the .EE ccTLD significantly more accessible including for the ability of private individuals and foreigners to register .EE domains. Changes will take place over a six month transition period. A number of new registrars have been accredited, all based in Estonia. More information is available from www.eestiinternet.ee.

Europe Secures Its Online Identity With .EU Benefits of having a .EU domain name were the focus of a dinner held in Brussels in June with five European companies explaining how the .EU domain has helped them develop their image and create new business opportunities in front of an audience that included Neelie Kroes, the European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda. In her speech, Ms Kroes commented on the importance of .EU in forging a European online presence, particularly for small businesses. "With more than 3.2 million registrations to date, .EU shows there is a real appetite for a European identity on the web. And that we need to continue developing it - even more so, perhaps, at a time of economic recovery - as a success story of our European project".

EU Court Sets Criteria for Domain Registration The European Court of Justice established broad new criteria for rejecting abusive .EU domain name registrations, according to a report in the Courthouse News Service. The case centred around the Austrian company Internetportal und Marketing GmbH that, according to the report, “abused the system for registering .EU domain names by exploiting a clause on special characters.”

.ORG and .EU Deploy DNNSEC for Greater Web User Security At the 38th ICANN meeting held in Brussels in June, both the Public Interest Registry and EURid announced separately they will be deploying Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) for the .ORG and .EU top level domains respectively. The move will see increased security for visitors to websites for the two TLDs. The Public Interest Registry said they are the first large TLD (with over eight million registrations) to implement DNSSEC. The first domain name to be signed with DNSSEC was isoc.org.

Security Extension Adds Security to FI-Domain Name Service FICORA will introduce the Domain Name System Security Extension (DNSSec) for Finnish domain names in autumn 2010. The security extension provides a powerful protection against forgery of domain names as well against other forms of attack. The introduction of the system guarantees that people using the internet are only shown the actual website that they intended to call up.

FICORA Annual Report 2009 Shows Increase in Registrations The number of FI domain names rose as a result of a marketing campaign for .FI domains individuals registering 7,745 new .FI domains. In all, 46,000 .FI domain names were registered in 2009.

Small Irish firms urged to use website for sales Small businesses still have a lot of catching up to do online, according to David Curtin, chief executive of the IE Domain Registry (IEDR) which manages Ireland’s .IE internet address space. In an interview with the Irish Times, Curtin noted many companies still had a “picture postcard” website containing little more than contact details, with few using their sites for e-commerce or product promotion.

Two Years After Launch, .ME Is Truly A Destination Domain Just two years after the world first heard of Montenegro’s top-level domain, .ME, more than 400,000 .ME domains have been registered with some large companies using the TLD including Facebook, Yahoo, WordPress, Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment.

New Rules for .PT Registry in force on 1 July As of 1 July new regulations for the .PT Registry (Portugal),came into place that include simplification of the registry for .com.pt and org.pt; making submissions easier; arbitration as a mean to solve conflicts, only attributed name trademarks are accepted as base for a .PT Registry and a reduction in prices. More information is available from dns.pt.

.SE represented when the Internet’s highest level becomes more secure On 16 June, under rigorous security, the first encryption keys are created for the deployment of the security extensions DNSSEC in the Internet’s so-called root zone.

First IDN.tel now live in advance of June 15th launch In preparation for the launch of sixteen IDN.tel languages, Telnic Limited on 11 June said that the first ever IDN.tel - телник.tel - is now live and accessible.