4th “domain” conference: the 1st day

The opening session of  the 4th International Conference for ccTLD registries and registrars of CIS, Central and Eastern Europe was followed by a round table “Legal issues of national domains governance” moderated by Mikhail Yakushev, Chairman of the CC’s Commission on legal issues. 

Katrina Sataki, NIC.LV (.lv), was the first to speak. She related about the problems of domain names blocking. “When public officials speak about the blocking, they often do not consider registries’ technical capabilities, - noted Katrina, - and we forget there are other ways of control, which really help solve problems and not just eliminate their sources.” Nacho Amadoz, puntCAT (.cat), elaborated on changes taking place in the Whois policy introduced in .cat for the sake of users’ protection.

Shavkat Sabirov, representative of the Internet Association of Kazakhstan, related about the Internet legal governance, stressing that it was essential to bear in mind  each country’s peculiarities in this regard. Dušan Popović shared with the conference participants the Serbian experience in the domain dispute resolution area. “We have conducted a serious work on harmonization of dispute resolution procedures, - he noted, - and ultimately brought them in consistency with the UDRP international standards.”

The next session addressed the issue of new gTLDs and IDNs. It was moderated by Alex Mayrhofer, NIC.AT (.at). He opened the session by briefing attendees on the new top-level domains industry. “The work on new domains commenced in 1998 and finally the document entitled the Applicant Guidebook was published in 2008. The document contained a procedure of submission by organizations of applications for generic top-level domains with their respective names, such as, for example, .cannon or .apple. The Applicant Guidebook described an initiative on launching “geographic” top-level domains with city names, for example, .berlin or .paris. I consider these domains a powerful instrument for branding and promotion both of certain companies and cities, - noted Mayrhofer. - Moreover, I hope that new top-level domains will emerge for certain communities, such as .gay or .eco, as well as new “terminological” domains such as .web or .shop. ICANN will begin accepting applications for these domains in 2012, and I expect the first domains to emerge already in 2013. The delegation procedure for this sort of domains is rather complex and each domain has a $185,000 price tag on it. Nevertheless, I trust ICANN will receive quite a number of applications.”
Michele Neylon, Blacknight Solutions, gave a registrar’s perspective of the new domains. He believes that 250 applications for top-level domains maximum will be submitted over a year. At the same time, in order to have the registrar market seriously go into this business, it is necessary to simplify and standardize the ICANN procedures which regulate registrars’ operations with new domains. Jean-Christophe Vignes, OpenRegistry, noted that, according to his data, the users still oftener buy domain names in familiar domains, for example, in .com, not daring to extensively use IDN domains. Desiree Miloshevic, Afilias, noted that upon introduction of such domains, the domain market will look quite differently vis-à-vis today’s picture. “We all need to keep a close eye on how it develops and, wherever possible, to provide expert assistance to ICANN and each another in order to continue working efficiently in the new environment,” – said she.

Svetlana Tkachenko, Hostmaster, related about implementation and usage of IDN domains in . ua. Sergey Sharikov, Webnames, summarized the current IDN implementation experience in Russia and Ukraine. Specifically, he noted that domain .укр, which is about to be delegated, had already passed 2 out of 3 stages of the ICANN approval procedure. Caspar von Veltheim, Minds + Machines, spoke about importance of city top-level domains. His presentation was echoed by Alexander Panov, Hosting Community with his account of the initiative to create new domain zones for the Russian capital -  .moscow and .москва. Specifically, he emphasized that these domains would positively tell on the city’s image by making it more attractive both for tourists and the business community. “During the 1st year upon the launch of the open registration in .moscow we plan to reach the number of 500-600 domain names, - noted Mr. Panov. Furthermore, the Moscow Government supported our initiative.” However, it is worth noting that the launch of domain .москва is still in question – all letters of this name are also used in the Latin alphabet.

Andrzej Bartosiewicz, Yonita, spoke about cybersecurity issues in 2012- 2015, while in conlusion of the sessionDmitry Belyavsky, TCI, presented to the attendees a new hard- and software complex for online domain name registration “Virtual Registrar”.