Domisfera

The latest statistics domain Latinoamericann aiming to measure the impact of policies for the Information Society in the development of Latin American ccTLDs throw the following details until February 29, 2008.

In February ccTLDs that had a higher percentage growth were: Costa Rica .cr (6.72%), Peru .pe (5.33%) and Bolivia .bo (4.44%). The case of Costa Rica is explained by the announcement and the opening of registration of second-level domains. Peru continues to grow due to the opening of IDN domain name registration and second level that has already done in previous months. The case of Bolivia is linked to an aggressive marketing strategy in order to pay for the domain names in installments.

This month highlights the negative growth (-21.22%) .do domains from the Dominican Republic due to the cleansing of records unpaid. Domains .cu of Cuba remain at its usual line had decreased by 0.35%. The .sv domains of El Salvador having had a profound process of purification, have restarted a process of growth.

The largest increases in absolute values of the past month are for Argentina .ar (26,031), Brazil .br (9,854) and Mexico .mx (3,679). These positions are filled by the same ccTLDs that last month, with a higher increase in registered domains.

Latinoamericann could not obtain data from Trinidad and Tobago .tt or Barbados .bb. In the case of Barbados has been a process of redelegation before and while it was possible to perform a whois and view data registered domains this is no longer feasible under the new administration.

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I recently saw that Cuba had only 1,434 .cu domains registered. 12.75 domains per 100,000 inhabitants. It is one of the four last ccTLDs in Latin America by number of domains registered. Globally ranked 49, ahead of Algeria (.dz domains).

The first drawback is the price. Although for entities located in Cuba is cheaper (222.7 Cuban pesos in the first year and 151 from the second) for non located on the island price is $350 for .com.cu and $600 for .cu domains. Both prices are for registrations and renewals.

The second drawback is that they can not register domains individuals, they can only do legal persons. If they are foreign in addition must meet these conditions:

(1) The application shall be made through agents residing in the Republic of Cuba authorized thereto.
(2) Data on Administrative and Financial Contact will be those for the Agent.
(3) Data from the Technical Contact may correspond to the Agent, a national entity or a foreign entity.

When submitting a certification trademark or other distinguishing marks issued by a foreign registration office, the document will be endorsed by the Cuban Office of Industrial Property.
If not, requires a prior Trademark Search. The process lasts for a month and cost about $100. 

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Colombia is the fourth largest country in South America, with a population of about 43 million.

Any person or foreign national can register a .com.co, .org.co, .net.co or .nom.co by 160,000 Colombian pesos (80,74 $) for a period of two years. The renewal fee is the same and is also biannual. It is also necessary to send a series of documents (scanned by mail, by fax or registered mail):

1) The number of their identity card, in the case of individuals and the Tax Identification Number (ILS) if they are legal persons with Colombian or foreign branch in Colombia. If they are foreign should provide the number of their identity card or tax identification of the country of origin.

2) The signed letter of responsibility where swears that the data provided are true, which was not violate the rights of any third party or brand and empowers the University of the Andes to cancel the domain if missing some of the set policies.

3) If it’s a company, it must provide the certificate from the Chamber of Commerce and whether it is an embassy, a letter from the ambassador in letterhead paper.

The minimum length of the domain is 2 characters and a maximum of 63. It is not possible to register IDN domains.

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On January 15, Nic.es gave the new. Until now the annual renewal of .es domain was determined and is conditioned by a fee. This was reflected in the Order of fees under the Ministry of the Presidency. Finally, the two Ministries involved (the Ministry of Industry and Tourism and the Ministry of Treasure) had given the go-ahead to move forward with the new instruction from the General Manager of the public corporation Red.es.

Until this instruction, renewal bound by a year of .es domains was in the Order of Taxes which is a standard range of the law which stated that the form of payment of a registration of a domain was a fee. Now all this has changed, renewals and other operations to register .es domains will be regulated with a public rate.

All this is not something trivial. In short, the rate of price change will allow the registration and renewal of .es domains for more than one year and other registry operations since its entry into force on 15 January 2008.

Among other fees, these are the most interesting ones:

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Statistic #1: Auctions completed by extension

Statistic #2: Domains sold by price range

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From January 10, 2008 it will be possible to register .rs Serbian domains. Slobodan Markovic from RNIDS told Domisfera that "The official starting date is not known yet and it is expected that Managing Board of .rs registry will determine the date at a session after mid-January. Most likely launch date for .rs is sometime towards the end of January or in February".

The Republic of Serbia has a population of 10 millions and the official language is the Serbian. It has two alphabets: a variation on the Cyrillic alphabet and a variation on the Latin alphabet. The characters of the two alphabets map to each other one-to-one and the Serbian has a simple principle: "write as you speak and read as it is written" .

Serbian Registry of Domain Names (RNIDS) has the task of migrating users from the .yu (Yugoslavia) domain. After this transition is complete, the .yu domain will be decommissioned and there will be two new ccTLDS:  .rs (Serbia) and .me (Montenegro). It is envisaged this transfer will take a couple of years, and ICANN will monitor the progress.

The RNIDS Assembly ratified the Letter of Intent with ICANN, signed by a Serbian delegation at 30th International Public ICANN Meeting. In this photo are Vint Cerf, Mirjana Tasić and Paul Twomey:

Ten days before the beginning of .rs domain registration, RNIDS will stop receiving requests for registering new .yu domains. All .yu domains, which have been registered until then, will continue to function normally at least until 30th September 2009.

Once the registration of .rs domains begins, current owners of .yu domains will have a priority in the first six months to register the same .rs domain name. All domain names which have not been registered until now with .yu extension will be immediately available for registration with .rs extension. According to the new regulations, everybody can register an unlimited number of .rs domains.

The prices without VAT in Serbian dinars (RSD) and U.S. dollars (USD) will be the following ones:

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Domisfera wanted to know more about Rick Schwartz, so asked for an interview with him. It’s not necessary to introduce him, a reading of the excellent profile written by Ron Jackson it’s enough.This is the result, if there are enough and relevant questions and comments from the readers, Domisfera will make a second interview.

(1) [Domisfera.com] How is any day in your life?

[Rick Schwartz] Each day is the day I plan. I start each day at about 5:30 and usually create a few projects and plant a few seeds. Have breakfast. Do a little more work and then off to a nice restaurant for lunch. Then I usually have an afternoon activity dinner and quiet night at home.

(2)What is your occupation at present? How many people work with you?

I am a soloist. With domains I work alone with the exception of ICA where I sit on the board and with the new cowboys.com project which is a collaboration of about 18 domain owners. When it comes to TRAFFIC, I only work with my partner Howard Neu and our wives. While others like to hire people I like to contract out whatever needs to be done.

(3) What do you think about IDN domains?

No matter what I say it is going to open a hornets nest. So do I BS everyone so the IDN folks are happy or do those reading expect me to say what I believe? What’s to think? I know many are heavy into it. Some have past credentials and successes and are friends of mine. Some are angry and lash out at anyone that is not an instant believer of IDN. Time will tell. Others are just hoping and wishing and waiting for this release and that release. Until there is a genuine market and a great need it is going to be a very slow ride. Many are bitter because the IDN’s that they do have don’t support the renewal fees.

What this or any other group or extension need to learn is that it is the MARKET that will determine WHEN and IF and not a bunch of folks running around calling everyone else stupid for not investing in IDN’s. No matter how middle of the road my comments are they want me to say it is the best thing since sliced bread. Well, let me say…..I don’t believe it is. But I don’t fault those that invest and believe in it. I do fault those folks that have taken the stance that if you don’t invest in IDN’s that you are just a stupid American. I don’t understand the anger and bigotry in that community. Makes no sense to me. Then they criticize other extensions that are breaking out. Just very weird to me and I wish them nothing but the best but that is not good enough for some of them. They want me to focus on them at TRAFFIC even tho we have had it discussed many times. But since they don’t come, they don’t know, so they make things up. They have yet to learn that the MARKET will decide. Not them, not me. Not anyone but the market. Why that makes folks angry is way beyond what I understand.

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Domisfera wanted to know more about the real state of SnapNames, so asked for an interview with Mason Cole. This is the result, if they are enough and relevant questions and comments from the readers, Domisfera will make a second interview.

(1) What is your full name? Where do you come from?

Mason Cole.  I’ve been with SnapNames for six years.  Prior to that I was a partner at a marketing agency.

(2) What is your position and daily work in SnapNames? How is any day for you in the firm?

I oversee industry relations as well as our partnerships with registrars.

(3) What did you do before working in SnapNames?, How do you begin in the domaining world? 

At first I was in the financial services industry.  I then moved into technology marketing and was a partner at a marketing and public relations agency.  SnapNames was my client at that agency, and I left to work inside the company.  When I first arrived here, my primary role was publishing State of the Domain, an industry newsletter.

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 Domisfera wanted to know more about Pool.com, so asked for an interview with Richard Schreier.

(1) What is your full name? Where do you come from?

Richard Schreier, Ottawa (Canada).

(2) What is your position and daily work in Pool? How is any day for you in the firm?

As chief executive officer, I oversee strategic initiatives for Pool.com and manage day-to-day operations.

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Domisfera wanted to know more about the real state of .tel domains, so asked for an interview with Benjamin Blumenthal, Director of Marketing of Telnic. This is the result, if they are enough and relevant questions and comments from the readers, Domisfera will make a second interview.

(1) [Domisfera.com] Could you tell us more about the history of .tel and when was it approved by ICANN?

[Benjamin Blumenthal] Telnic initially submitted an application to ICANN in 2000 for the .tel Top Level Domain (TLD). At that time, we believed that the internet and telephony industries would be converging quickly and that a top level domain would be needed to organize this space. With hindsight, our intuition has proven to be correct.

ICANN finally approved Telnic’s second application submitted in 2004. The final agreement was signed on May 30th 2006.  

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