 |
Registrar Connections
|
February 2009
In this issue
Domain Names
Grow to 177 Million in 2008
The VeriSign Domain Name Industry Brief reports
that there was a total base of 177 million domain name registrations
across all of the TLDs at the end of 2008. This represents a 16 percent
growth over the previous year and a two percent growth over the third
quarter of 2008. The base of Country Code Top Level Domain Names
(ccTLDs) totaled 71.1 million domain names, a 22 percent increase year
over year and a three percent increase quarter over quarter. In terms
of total registrations, .com has the highest base followed by .cn (China),
.de (Germany) and .net.1
The overall base of .com and .net domain names
grew to 90.4 million domain names at the end of 2008. This represents
a 12 percent increase over the previous year and a one percent increase
over the third quarter of 2008.2
New .com and .net registrations were added at an average of 2.1 million
per month in the fourth quarter of 2008 for a total of 6.3 million new
registrations in the quarter.
The latest VeriSign Domain Name Industry Brief
also spotlights how VeriSign and others in the global Internet community
are working to provide a way for people of all languages to navigate
the Internet. The issue is important, because Internet usage is growing
fastest in countries where English and other Latin-based languages are
not the primary language.
The Domain Name Industry Brief series highlights
key trends in the industry, key performance indicators and growth opportunities.
The February report is available now at www.verisign.com/domainbrief
Back
to the top
Welcome
to VeriSign Hillarie Flood
Please welcome Hillarie Flood to VeriSign as
the newest member of the Naming Team. Hillarie joined VeriSign in January
2009 as the new Vice President of Product Management.
Hillarie brings with her a rich background
in consumer product management and product marketing. Her vast experiences
include working at companies such as Microsoft and AOL. She has broad
retail and direct consumer experience, international product management
experience and extensive leadership in product lifecycle management.
Hillarie is passionate about technology and about product management.
In her role, Hillarie will take on the responsibility
for several products including VeriSign Internet Defense Network, Internet
Profile Service and .tv. She is looking forward to getting to
know our customers in the weeks to come. Please don’t hesitate to reach
out to Hillarie at hflood@verisign.com
with any product management related question.
Back to the top
Compliance
Corner: Registration Compliance Program
What Is The Compliance Program?
In order to ensure that registrars are meeting their obligations
under their Registrar Accreditation Agreement (“RAA”), ICANN administers
a compliance program. Details of this program can be found at: http://www.icann.org/en/compliance/registrar-compliance.htm.
While ICANN’s program is directed at validating registrar compliance
with ICANN mandates, it does not address the obligations of the registrars
under the Registry Registrar Agreement (“RRA”) with the Registry.
To address this, VeriSign has implemented a Registrar Compliance Program
(“the Program”).
What Will The Program Cover?
At a minimum, the Program will:
- Verify the registrar
is providing customer support to its registrants;
- Confirm the registrar
has a readily accessible Registration Agreement and domain name dispute
policy;
- Validate that the
registrar protects data exchanged between registrar’s system and VeriSign’s
Shared Registration System (“SRS”);
- Monitor registrar
compliance with responding to authorization code requests within ten
calendar days;
- Confirm registrar
provides domain name availability checks;
- Monitor registrar’s
compliance with existing Operational Requirements;
- Validate registrar’s
compliance with legal requirements in the RRA
- Review registrar’s
payment habits, payment security history, and emergency credit practices;
- Complete registrar
Authentication step to validate Registrar is a legally-operating business
entity in good standing; and
- Confirm that the
registrar’s ICANN accreditation is in good standing.
How Will It Work?
VeriSign’s Customer Affairs Office (CAO) will
be responsible for performing these compliance reviews. All existing
registrars are subject to this Program. Due to the large number
of registrars, this program will be administered throughout the year
and registrars will be selected on a monthly basis to be reviewed.
VeriSign will be able to complete many of the steps of the program simply
by reviewing the registrar’s Web site, so please be sure your Web site
content is current.
For areas of the Program in which this is not
feasible, the Customer Affairs Office will e-mail and/or telephone the
registrar’s ICANN primary contact and request the necessary information.
Please ensure your ICANN primary contact information is accurate.
Registrars that fail to meet contractual obligations
associated with the items listed above will be contacted about further
steps.
VeriSign may modify the compliance program
at any time and/or require additional means to validate that a registrar
has met the compliance program requirements.
Have questions or want more information? Simply
e-mail cao@verisign-grs.com
or call +1 703-925-6999 and a VeriSign representative will be happy
to assist.
Back to the top
VeriSign’s Webinar
Series
Thank you to those of you who joined us for
the February Domain Name Industry Brief & Industry Trends Webinar, the
second of the 2009 webinar series. For those of you who were unable
to attend click here
for archive materials or email namingmarketing@verisign.com
with any questions. You can also find the latest issue of the
Domain Name Industry Brief posted to www.verisign.com/domainbrief
Don’t forget to mark your calendars for the
next Webinar taking place on Thursday, March 19 where we will host a technical session focusing
on VeriSign’s EPP SDK’s and Tools.
A separate email from Naming Marketing will
be sent out with Dial-In and Log-In details. We look forward to having
you join us then. If you have any issues logging into the archive or
have questions feel free to contact Naming Marketing: namingmarketing@verisign.com.
Back
to the top
Save the Date:
Asia Registrar Days March 30 and April 2
The 2009 Asia Registrar Days will take place
on March
30 in Beijing, China and April 2 in Seoul, Korea. These are the
first of our 2009 Registrar Days planned this year. They will be centered
around the Domain Name industry in Asia, policy updates, new product
developments, marketing programs and much more. These events are open
to all VeriSign registrars; however there will be additional events
held for the following regions during 2009; North America, Europe, Central
America, and Latin America for your convenience. Please look for
the Save the Date email and register for the location most convenient
to you. If you have any questions surrounding the Registrar Day events
feel free to send an email to namingevents@verisign.com
or check out the event page on VeriSign.com for
more information. We look forward to having you join us.
Back
to the top
Customer Service FAQs: What
Your Should Know
Q: What are the maximum years I can renew a .com or .net
domain name?
A:
A domain names expiry date many not exceed 10 years from the current
(today’s) date. If you try to renew a domain name and you exceed the
10 year maximum, you will receive the following EPP error.
EPP Error: 2306 - Parameter value policy error
Reason: Max Registration Period exceeded
Q: How do I access my IPS (Internet Profile Service) reports?
A:
Each Registrar needs to sign an agreement, they will then be provided
the login details by VeriSign, during the IPS ramp-up process. The registrar
can access the FTP site, ips-ftp.verisign-grs.com,
to download their IPS reports.
Q: If I do not have any billable transactions during a given
month, will I still receive an invoice?
A:
No, invoices are only generated if there are billable transactions.
Back
to the top
eMarketer: A Billion Internet
Users, and Counting
Published: February 17, 2009
Growing and growing and growing and...
The moment when the Internet passed 1 million users is veiled
in history.
The truth is, whenever it happened, no one
was counting—or even had the means to do so. But according to the “Internet
Growth Survey” from MIT,
there were 1 million hosts (defined as either a computer or IP address)
in 1995.
At the time, it was estimated that the Internet
was doubling in size every year, so there would be over 1 billion users
in 2005.
That timeline proved overly optimistic. But
according to the comScore
World Metrix audience measurement service, the Internet surpassed
1 billion visitors in December 2008.
“Surpassing 1 billion global users is a significant
landmark in the history of the Internet,” said Magid Abraham, comScore
CEO, in a statement. “It is a monument to the increasingly unified global
community in which we live and reminds us that the world truly is becoming
more flat.”
comScore got to a billion users without counting
access from Internet cafes, mobile phones or PDAs.
By contrast, eMarketer employs a slightly broader
audience definition—access by anyone of any age from any location—to
estimate that there were 1.172 billion Internet users worldwide in 2008.
Either way you count, one thing few prognosticators
foresaw in 1995 was that the US would have only the second-largest online
population when the Internet hit the billion-user mark. China ranks
number 1.
The Web still has plenty of room to grow.
“China has taken the lead in the number of
Internet users worldwide, and today only about 20% of its residents
are online,” said Lisa E. Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst. “While
China will continue to lead the world in Internet users, look for India
to eventually overtake the US, Japan and Germany.”
While Internet usage is close to saturation
in the US, Japan and Germany, India’s Internet population lags behind
its status as the second-most-populous nation on earth. “But eventually
India’s Internet population will grow large enough to overtake those
smaller countries that are now in the top spots,” Ms. Phillips continued.
“The second billion will be online before we
know it,” said Mr. Abraham, “and the third billion will arrive even
faster than that.”
Back
to the top
In the News
This section contains a selection of articles pertaining to the Domain
Name Industry compiled by Information, Inc.
"Microsoft Announces $250,000 Conficker Worm Bounty"
Network World (02/12/09) Messmer, Ellen
In an effort to stop the spread of the Conficker/Downadup
worm, which is believed to have infected at least 10 million PCs around
the world since November, Microsoft is offering a $250,000 reward for
anyone who has information that leads to the arrest and conviction of
those responsible for spreading the malicious code. In addition to offering
the reward, Microsoft has partnered with security vendors, Internet
registries and DNS providers such as ICANN, ORG, and NeuStar, to stop
the Conficker worm from spreading further. Despite the efforts by Microsoft
and others, the Conficker worm is set to wreak greater havoc on the
world's PCs, security experts say. Experts say the worm connects to
more than 250 command-and-control servers around the world every day
as it awaits instructions on future downloads or actions. But the coalition
formed by Microsoft is planning to take action to target the worm's
update mechanism, including taking out the unique domain names for servers
used for Conficker control, says Symantec's Gerry Egan. Microsoft says
the coalition has already disabled a significant number of domains targeted
by Conficker in an effort to disrupt the use of the worm and prevent
attacks. (Web
Link)
Back
to the top
1 The gTLD and ccTLD data cited
in this report are estimates as of the time of this report and subject
to change as more complete data is received.
2 For .com and .net domain name
registrations, VeriSign reports an adjusted base of active domain name
registrations, which reflects deletions that occur within the five-day
Add Grace Period beyond the quarter end. This figure may differ from
other non-authoritative publicly available sources which do not adjust
the base.
|
Worldwide Sites
