Venue
The 4th International Conference for CCTLD administrators and registrars of the CIS, Central and Eastern Europe opened in Serbia
On 14 September, the 4th International Conference for ccTLD administrators and registrars of the CIS, Central and Eastern Europe opened in the city of Novi Sad, Serbia. This year, the conference is attended by nearly 100 participants who represent national registries and domain names registrars from almost 30 countries.
Mr. Andrey Kolesnikov, CEO of the Coordination Center for domains .RU/.РФ, welcomed conference participants. He briefed conference attendees on the latest Russian national domains’ growth statistics. “In 2010, we witnessed a spectacular growth of domain names in domain .RU, - noted Mr. Kolesnikov. – There were no dramatic upturns this year; however, the domain posts a sustainable growth. On 11 November 2011, there will be the first anniversary since the launch of the Cyrillic domain .РФ, and I figure just 10-15% domain names will not be extended. Most likely, it will happen to those domains, which administrators registered “in store”. Mr. Kolesnikov briefed the audience about the CC: “Roughly once in every 2 years we introduce amendments into domain names registration procedures. This is due to the fact that the market is constantly changing and we try to have these procedures catch up with changes. At present, we try to make registration procedures in domains .RU and .РФ uniform and have already posted a draft text of unified procedures for the community’s review and comments. For registrars we recently launched a project “Virtual Registrar”: a hard- and software complex, it enables a registrar to cut costs of developing and maintaining software. As of today, as many as 24 accredited registrars operate in domain .RU, while 21 registrars do so in .РФ, and we plan that their number will grow in particular thanks to “Virtual Registrar”. Moreover, the CC, Technical Center of Internet and Openstat co-launched the “Domains of Russia” statistical project. “We want to link the domain statistics with content and find out whether it will be of anyone’s interest,” - noted Andrey Kolesnikov.
Nenad Marinković, CEO of the National Registry of Serbia (RNIDS), briefed the conference attendees on the situation in the Serbian domain industry. “RNIDS has functioned for 10 years and cooperates with 34 accredited registrars. Our national domain is .RS, and the second domain, .СРБ, was delegated to us in May 2011. According to our plans, it will be up and running within 2 months,” – said Mr. Marinković.
Slobodan Markovic, a representative of the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society of Serbia, spoke about the cooperation between the Ministry and the National Registry, RNIDS. “In December 2010, the Ministry signed an agreement with RNIDS, wherein expressed its intention to support by all means the national domain market. The agreement’s term is 4 years. It first of all ensures domain names registrars’ rights which are fully consistent with international standards set by the ICANN. We strive, first and foremost, to stabilize relations between RNIDS, registrars and the government, - stressed Mr. Markovic, - and we hope the new agreement will be instrumental in this respect.”
Steve Gobin and Gabriella Schittek gave an update on projects implemented by the ICANN. “As of today, we have already received applications from 28 countries for 38 national domains,” – noted Ms. Schittek. Steve Gobin spoke about launching new top-level domains. “We plan to start accepting applications for new domains from 12 January through 12 April 2012 and hope the demand for them will be fairly high.”
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