Domain Year 2011 in Review. Georgy Georgievskiy, .RU Domain Coordination Center
Infonic presents its readers with a year-end summary of the domain markets in Ukraine, Russia, and the world. Leading experts and representatives of major companies and organizations answered our questions.
We offer answers from the head of the department for work with registrars and users of the Coordination Center for the national Internet domainGeorge GeorgievskiyO.
- In your opinion, what were the main events in the Russian and global domain market in 2011?
In the Russian market, the Cyrillic domain .РФ is experiencing rapid growth, a boom that even the boldest analysts didn't predict. Incidentally, this was also a significant event in the global domain market: even ICANN didn't expect such a huge success for the IDN program. In fact, Russia was the only country to create its own IDN domain and fully realize the domain's potential in its national language.
The second major event in the global domain market is the approval of the New gTLD program. In January, we (the Coordination Center) plan to submit an application for the .ДЕТИ domain. According to our information, several more applications will be submitted from Russia, including for the .SKOLKOVO, .МОСКВА, and .MOSCOW domains.
- What should we expect in 2012 that is so important that it could change the domain and hosting market?
The domain market has clearly become cramped within the framework of existing domains, so 2012 will be marked by the expansion of the domain space.
The New gTLD program will be launched, and although its results will only be available in 2013 (applications will be reviewed approximately in November 2012), the number of applications submitted and the domains mentioned in them will accurately indicate the development vector of the domain market.
Are there any companies in Russia that would be interested in applying under the New gTLD program?
Yes, there are, and the Coordination Center is among them. :) The application for the .ДЕТИ domain will be submitted to ICANN in early 2012, reviewed only by the end of the year, and if approved, the .ДЕТИ domain will be delegated to Russia in early 2013. We are already supported in this endeavor by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) and the .РФ Civic Chamber. The goal of the project is to allocate a special internet zone where minors can access various content without the possibility of encountering objectionable materials. The .СКОЛКОВОО domain is a project directly initiated by the foundation. In April 2011, we signed a letter of intent with the foundation, according to which we will provide them with every possible support in the registration and further development of the new domain. As for the .МОСКВА and .МОСКВА and .МОСКВА domains, they are handled by the domain name registrar RU-CENTER.
Do you think Russian registrants and registrars will be interested in the .XXX domain? Will this domain truly become popular worldwide?
The first few months of the .XXX domain's operation revealed that the primary interest was to register one's domain name to prevent it from being used to host inappropriate resources. As recent events demonstrate, this was unnecessary – the .XXX domain administrator, ICM Registry, has itself begun suspending every domain in the zone registered in violation of anti-cybersquatting rules. Initial results from RU-CENTER, the only Russian registrar accredited in this domain zone, indicate that this "adult domain" has generated little interest among Russian users.
How will events around Cyrillic ccTLDs (for example, .РФ and .УКР) develop in the future?
Over 60% of the names registered in the .РФ domain on the first day of open registration have already been renewed and are still being renewed. More than a third of all domain names are actively used, and they host unique websites, not .RU ones. As we expected, Cyrillic domains are most actively used in outdoor advertising, which is not surprising – even a long website name written in Cyrillic is much easier to remember. Regarding the zone's development in 2012, we certainly expect some decline in registrations – people who registered their domains will not renew theirs, which is normal practice. However, even taking this situation into account, we expect an increase of approximately 12% of names and plan to reach one million registered .РФ domains by the end of 2012.
