Results of the 3rd international conference of cctld administrators: the coordination center’s takeaways to share

On 23 September 2010 the Coordination Center for ccTLD .RU hosted a press briefing on results of the 3rd international conference of ccTLD administrators. The event centered on the issue of open registration of domain names in ccTLD .РФ, as well as marketing strategies to tackle target audiences in the course of  promotion of IDN TLDs and issues regarding development of IDN TLDs, among other issues.

The 3rd International conference of administrators and registrars of ccTLDs of the CIS, Central and Eastern Europe got together 100 more participants from 25 nations. The final stage of implementation of the new ccTLD .РФ became one of the important issues discussed at the conference. For example, according to Mr. Andrey Kolesnikov, the CC director, already on 30 September 2010 the CC Board meeting will decide on the date of the open registration period in the Cyrillic domain. The up-front start date is set for November this year.

Importantly, the Board shall debate and approve an open registration mechanism, which is a pivotal instrument on the onset, for a correctly chosen strategy should help counter cybersquattering, ie. purchasing domain names for their downstream resale. As of today, there are three options of the registration procedure: unrestricted registration, the one with a temporary price increase, and registration with a limited number of domain names registered per one individual or legal entity.

Meanwhile, all three options imply roughly equal quantitative projections: according to Mr. Andrey Kolesnikov, as many as 10 to 80 thousand Cyrillic domain names will de delegated already on the first day of the open registration period. He asserts the spike is predictable: “The excitement should likely to subside on the next day, - says the CC’s director, - however, on the first day we envisage a considerable influx of registrations.” The factor behind the number of registrations in the beginning is an unceasing popularity of ccTLD .RU: “Any time soon, - reports Mr. Kolesnikov, - ccTLD .RU will register the third million domain name. This is an important milestone.”

In addition to the issue of the open registration in ccTLD .РФ, the Samara conference focused on the ICANN new gTLD initiative, which makes gTLDs available for any organization or private individual for a sizable amount. In the framework of this program, internet users’ associations, large cities and corporations can obtain their own domains. At present the registration procedure for such domains is still being developed, however, it is likely that in several years there will be domains like .yandex or .microsoft. Mr. Andrey Kolesnikov vouches the registrars will shoulder the initiative, but it is too premature to talk about its success: “One of our registrars has already announced a project of creation of urban domains .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА for Russia’s capital, - noted Mr. Kolesnikov, - at present this is a nice PR action. But it will take minimum one year and perhaps more than that to deliver on the new gTLD project.”

No doubt, the CC’s experience with the launch of the IDN TLD for Russia is invaluable, but it largely represents the CC’s now-how: “We of course exchange experiences with our colleagues busy introducing new IDN TLDs in their  mother tongues, but each of us faces absolutely different challenges, - notes Mr. Andrey Kolesnikov. – In China, for instance, users can already key in a second-level domain name in hieroglyphs, which is why, technically, they were only left to replace the top-level domain name, .CN, with a hieroglyph. The Cyrillic IDN TLD was developed from scratch and, as it became clear at the conference, a few nations, for example, Serbia, are catching up with the initiative and submit their applications.”