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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.
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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.
The Mayor of Paris was very upbeat about the new TLD project when he spoke during the ICANN meeting in Paris. Not surprisingly Paris is one of the European cities that is pushing hard to get its own tld .paris.
According to news released earlier today the .paris bid is going to be using a combination of AFNIC and CORE.
AFNIC already runs the .fr cctld operations, while CORE runs .cat's operations.
More here
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According to news released earlier today the .paris bid is going to be using a combination of AFNIC and CORE.
AFNIC already runs the .fr cctld operations, while CORE runs .cat's operations.
More here
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!
Here's the long version of their advert:
In French - sorry ! Subtitles available!
AFNIC, in common with a lot of registry operators, maintains a list of members / registrars on its website. It's probably the most complete list you can find.
On Friday evening French registrar and hosting provider OVH decided to abuse the database and sent spam to a large number of the AFNIC members. The email, which used scaremongering language, was to push OVH's services on smaller AFNIC member companies.
According to AFNIC's own website's terms and conditions this abuse of the data is forbidden, as you would expect. Now the question remains whether AFNIC will take any punitive action against OVH for the abuse.
On Friday evening French registrar and hosting provider OVH decided to abuse the database and sent spam to a large number of the AFNIC members. The email, which used scaremongering language, was to push OVH's services on smaller AFNIC member companies.
According to AFNIC's own website's terms and conditions this abuse of the data is forbidden, as you would expect. Now the question remains whether AFNIC will take any punitive action against OVH for the abuse.
Who needs new gTLDs when you can grab your own ccTLD!
Last year I noticed a trend in the ccTLD world, with a lot of governments and interest groups taking an interest in governance of their namespaces.
AFNIC, which runs .fr and several other cctlds, came under review from the French government.
Less than a year later the French government has put the registry management out to tender.
Interested parties have 52 days from the announcement, which was made on January 15th, to submit their proposals.
The winning bidder will get the contract for an initial period of 7 years.
So who is likely to place a bid?
Presumably AFNIC, who currently manage the namespace, will be in there, but there are bound to be others. Antony Van Couvering hints at COCCA making a play for it, while Afilias and several others may also be interested in getting a pitch in.
Last year I noticed a trend in the ccTLD world, with a lot of governments and interest groups taking an interest in governance of their namespaces.
AFNIC, which runs .fr and several other cctlds, came under review from the French government.
Less than a year later the French government has put the registry management out to tender.
Interested parties have 52 days from the announcement, which was made on January 15th, to submit their proposals.
The winning bidder will get the contract for an initial period of 7 years.
So who is likely to place a bid?
Presumably AFNIC, who currently manage the namespace, will be in there, but there are bound to be others. Antony Van Couvering hints at COCCA making a play for it, while Afilias and several others may also be interested in getting a pitch in.
The IEDR has obviously released some form of press release in the last few days to put a spin on its latest figures. Of course the press release isn't on the registry's website nor has it been sent to stakeholders yet again, though I was able to get my hands on a copy of it via a 3rd party.
So what are they trying to sell us today?
The price that the IEDR is referring to is the wholesale price NOT the retail price. The retail price is set by the registrars not the registry and for the registry to make these kind of comments about pricing is inappropriate. Other registry operators would not make comments about their registrars pricing policies, so why should the IEDR?
To claim that the price has fallen is misleading, as the fall in price / cost will only have affected the registrars not the registrants. For the registry to make allusions to pricing in this manner suggests that they are in some way influencing the retail pricing
Why must they insist on referring to themselves as "the managed registry" without ever explaining what they are managing?
Only 2.5% of IE domains are used by non-business users according to their statistics, but there is no explanation of why this is the case. There's no comparison between Ireland and other countries in this regard either.
If you were to compare IE registrations with FR registrations, for example, I somehow doubt that IE would come out looking so well. Unlike Ireland the French registry doesn't put silly barriers in the way of legitimate registrations.
The public won't understand or care what a "reseller" is in this context.
The introduction of multi-year registrations is a positive move, but the lack of multiyear renewals seriously hampers its effectiveness and causes headaches.
If the IEDR actually cared about their resellers they would actually communicate with them, but they obviously don't.
The reseller community drives registrations and basically keeps the IEDR and its staff in jobs, yet the IEDR do not care enough about the registrars / resellers to even bother sharing press releases with them - we have to find out from a 3rd party.
And of course nowhere in the press release is there any mention of Comreg, the extended registry downtime over the past few weeks or any of their inane proposals, such as the policy board that would not have any registrar representation.
So what are they trying to sell us today?
The IE Domain Registry (IEDR) today reported a 23% jump in the net number of .ie websites registered in Ireland in Q3 compared to the same period last year.There are two serious issues with that section of their statement.
The growing number of companies and sole traders moving their business operations online and choosing to do so with a .ie website is one of the main reasons for the rise, in addition to five consecutive years of price reductions by the IEDR, which has made it more affordable for businesses to do so. The cost of registering a .ie domain has fallen by over 60% since 2003.
The price that the IEDR is referring to is the wholesale price NOT the retail price. The retail price is set by the registrars not the registry and for the registry to make these kind of comments about pricing is inappropriate. Other registry operators would not make comments about their registrars pricing policies, so why should the IEDR?
To claim that the price has fallen is misleading, as the fall in price / cost will only have affected the registrars not the registrants. For the registry to make allusions to pricing in this manner suggests that they are in some way influencing the retail pricing
If the figures are official why aren't they published openly on the IEDR's site?
The latest figures from the IEDR, the managed registry for Ireland's official internet address .ie, show that new registrations were up by almost a fifth with 8,197 .ie websites registered in the period July to September 2008.
Why must they insist on referring to themselves as "the managed registry" without ever explaining what they are managing?
Based on what criteria exactly? Claiming that Ireland is "on a par" with other countries is fine, but can they actually cite any real figures to support that claim?
Registrations rose by 20.3% representing a substantial increase on figures from the same period last year, when 6,813 .ie website registrations were recorded. The increase also means the total number of .ie websites registered in Ireland now exceeds 110,000, just four months after the 100,000th barrier was broken earlier in May this year.
Of the .ie websites registered in Q3 83.3% of those were registered by corporate bodies and sole traders while personal domains blogs and other non-commercial websites, accounted for 2.5% of the registrations, placing Ireland on a par with the level of uptake recorded for other country code top level domains.
Only 2.5% of IE domains are used by non-business users according to their statistics, but there is no explanation of why this is the case. There's no comparison between Ireland and other countries in this regard either.
If you were to compare IE registrations with FR registrations, for example, I somehow doubt that IE would come out looking so well. Unlike Ireland the French registry doesn't put silly barriers in the way of legitimate registrations.
For the first time this quarter the IEDR has also made multiyear registrations available to resellers for a period of 2 - 10 years, thus enabling .ie resellers to register and secure a .ie domain for several years at a time. The IEDR plans to extend this service by Q1 by offering resellers the option of multiyear renewals.Wouldn't publishing data related to this change have been a bit more newsworthy?
The public won't understand or care what a "reseller" is in this context.
The introduction of multi-year registrations is a positive move, but the lack of multiyear renewals seriously hampers its effectiveness and causes headaches.
Commenting on the 20% rise in .ie registrations, Mr. David Curtin, Chief Executive of IE Domain Registry, said; "This has been another very strong quarter for the IEDR and one we expect to see continue into Q4, when it is predicted that the number of .ie domains registered will exceed the 115,000 mark by year end. Our reseller community, in particular, has been instrumental in driving registrations again this year and as broadband rollout and download speeds continue to improve, we expect to see more companies and SMEs, in particular, availing of .ie as a secure local online environment in which to do business".Curtin should get an award of some kind for fluffy meaningless statements.
If the IEDR actually cared about their resellers they would actually communicate with them, but they obviously don't.
The reseller community drives registrations and basically keeps the IEDR and its staff in jobs, yet the IEDR do not care enough about the registrars / resellers to even bother sharing press releases with them - we have to find out from a 3rd party.
And of course nowhere in the press release is there any mention of Comreg, the extended registry downtime over the past few weeks or any of their inane proposals, such as the policy board that would not have any registrar representation.
AFNIC emailed its registrars this afternoon to warn about a phishing fraud attack that is using the French ccTLD registry.
Earlier this year Nominet, the UK registry, issued a warning about similar emails.
Earlier this year Nominet, the UK registry, issued a warning about similar emails.
Image via Wikipedia
What's interesting about these sales is that both names were supposedly bought by the same buyer and that they have set a new record for .fr sales.
While porn.fr may have sold for €30k, auto.fr went for €100k via Sedo and voitures.fr fetched a very respectable €50k.
So cars are worth more in France than sex?
Possibly. Who knows?
The IEDR's annual report for 2007 has been published (
IEDRAnnualReport2007.pdf )
Of course they didn't bother telling any of their stakeholders that it had been released, but we're more or less used to their lack of communication at this stage, as they prefer to tell the media!
In any case with the current Comreg public consultation ongoing the report was bound to make at least a passing reference to the regulatory changes.
The introductory section did not disappoint:
It then continues:
Other parts of the report deal with the company's retained profits. Similar to Nominet and other ccTLD registries the IE Domain Registry does not have any financial issues.
It's unfortunate that the bulk of the annual report was drafted prior to the recent ICANN meeting, as it would have been interesting to see what kind of comment they'd have made on the new TLDs.
When it comes down to the actual figures involved there are few surprises, though how the figures are framed is questionable at times. The reliance on webhosting.info's statistics, for example, is quite disappointing. The assumptions about registrant density are also quite odd, as only a portion of a ccTLD's registrants would actually reside in that country. This is of particular importance if you wish to examine the registrant makeup in *.uk for example, which has a very open registration policy. It would have been a lot more interesting to see a report similar to that produced by AFNIC last year.
The cost of IE domains to resellers has been dropping, but sales figures and turnover has been increasing.
Of course the report doesn't make it clear that not all resellers will pass on savings to users, so certain assumptions and gaps in the report may lead readers to get a slightly different persective.
The introduction of "personal" IE domains gave a boost to registration figures for 2007. That's hardly surprising really.
But what about the antiquated and ambiguous policies that the registry still enforces?
The IEDR's David Curtin is a stalwart defender of some of their views, which seem to be at odds to those of other ccTLD managers.
For example the lack of a formal aftermarket in IE domains would be seen as quite negative by many industry observers, whereas Curtin seems to view this in a positive, yet incredibly naive and misinformed light:
One of the "unique selling points" of the IE namespace is its supposedly higher level of security:
Update: Now linking to a local copy of the IEDR's report as the link on their site seems to have been removed
IEDRAnnualReport2007.pdf )
Of course they didn't bother telling any of their stakeholders that it had been released, but we're more or less used to their lack of communication at this stage, as they prefer to tell the media!
In any case with the current Comreg public consultation ongoing the report was bound to make at least a passing reference to the regulatory changes.
The introductory section did not disappoint:
As a result of the Communications Regulation (Amendment) Act 2007, regulation of the .ie namespace passes from the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to ComReg, which is empowered, subject to consultation with the relevant Ministers and the approval of the Oireachtas, to issue regulations over a range of operational and other matters in relation to .ie.
It then continues:
Our international competitors, .com and .eu etc., are not subject to the Act or to ComReg regulation. So we have a concern, which we expect ComReg would share, that the impact of regulation should not militate against the continued growth and development of .ie.They conveniently ignore that .eu is answerable to the European Union, which is a lot more onerous than any national body.
Other parts of the report deal with the company's retained profits. Similar to Nominet and other ccTLD registries the IE Domain Registry does not have any financial issues.
It's unfortunate that the bulk of the annual report was drafted prior to the recent ICANN meeting, as it would have been interesting to see what kind of comment they'd have made on the new TLDs.
When it comes down to the actual figures involved there are few surprises, though how the figures are framed is questionable at times. The reliance on webhosting.info's statistics, for example, is quite disappointing. The assumptions about registrant density are also quite odd, as only a portion of a ccTLD's registrants would actually reside in that country. This is of particular importance if you wish to examine the registrant makeup in *.uk for example, which has a very open registration policy. It would have been a lot more interesting to see a report similar to that produced by AFNIC last year.
The cost of IE domains to resellers has been dropping, but sales figures and turnover has been increasing.
Of course the report doesn't make it clear that not all resellers will pass on savings to users, so certain assumptions and gaps in the report may lead readers to get a slightly different persective.
The introduction of "personal" IE domains gave a boost to registration figures for 2007. That's hardly surprising really.
But what about the antiquated and ambiguous policies that the registry still enforces?
The IEDR's David Curtin is a stalwart defender of some of their views, which seem to be at odds to those of other ccTLD managers.
For example the lack of a formal aftermarket in IE domains would be seen as quite negative by many industry observers, whereas Curtin seems to view this in a positive, yet incredibly naive and misinformed light:
...there is no formal secondary market for .ie domains, therefore the problem ofA healthy secondary market does not have to involve "poaching" of domain names and I'm amazed that a man of his intelligence would make such a comment. That's almost like saying that selling property to the highest bidder should be illegal.
poaching of domains and holding them to ransom is not an issue...
One of the "unique selling points" of the IE namespace is its supposedly higher level of security:
Other countries that made different choices regarding the type of ccTLD RegistryIt will be interesting to see if any of the media do more than simply recycle the press release.
are now facing the challenges of costly intellectual property disputes, identity theft, phishing, cybercrime and credit card fraud.
Update: Now linking to a local copy of the IEDR's report as the link on their site seems to have been removed
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In common with a lot of the other ccTLDs, AFNIC is slowly but surely making the move to EPP.
Earlier this morning all registrars were emailed with details of the provisional EPP timeline and technical details.
Further information is on the AFNIC site.
Earlier this morning all registrars were emailed with details of the provisional EPP timeline and technical details.
Further information is on the AFNIC site.
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