Preliminary results of registration in the .РФ zone revealed problems
Company RU-CENTERThe Ukrainian Internet has released preliminary results of domain name registrations in the Cyrillic domain zone .РФ. The current priority registration period has revealed a number of problems that the Ukrainian internet could face if registrations begin in the Ukrainian Cyrillic domain .УКР.
According to RU-CENTER, as of early January 2010, more than 5,000 domains had been registered in the .РФ zone in response to requests from trademark owners.
The largest number of applications for .РФ domain registration came from Moscow residents, followed by the Moscow Region (11.4% of all applications). St. Petersburg ranked third (8%). Among Russian regions, the Sverdlovsk Region leads the way, accounting for 2.9% of .РФ domains registered. It's worth noting that 7% of all .РФ domains registered through RU-CENTER were registered by residents of foreign countries.
A total of 14,038 domain registration applications in .РФ were processed. Only 8,117 applications were submitted on behalf of trademark owners.
Approximately one in three domain name registration applications in the .РФ zone was rejected. The reasons for registration denials vary widely. RU-CENTER cites the following statistics: "In 15% of cases, the refusal is due to the fact that the domain application was not submitted by the copyright holder; in 8%, the trademark consists entirely of illegible graphic elements. The following reasons each accounted for 1% of refusals: the trademark registration procedure was incomplete, i.e., the copyright holder does not have a registration certificate; the trademark registration has expired; the trademark registration has been cancelled, etc."
Preliminary results of the priority registration period have revealed the presence of problems that analysts and market participants had feared several months ago. As a reminder, the start of registration was accompanied bythe activation of cybersquatters.
Initially, the Coordination Center for TLD RU will allow all holders of trademark patents to register domain names. Obtaining such a document was relatively straightforward. Later, the Coordination Center temporarily suspended registration and attempted to change the rules. It was planned that domains would be granted to holders of patents obtained before March 25, 2009. However, the changes came into effect.did not join, and domains continued to float into the hands of cybersquatters.
The most high-profile domain registration refusals involved a social network"Classmates"Philip Morris encountered similar problems when it failed to register the domain PARLIAMENT.RF. In this case, the problem lay in the parallel process of reserving domains for government use.
RU-CENTER reported that during the preliminary registration period, it received approximately 70 "paired applications" from owners of identical trademarks. It turned out that 129 domains were being claimed by two applicants with priority rights, 11 domains were being claimed by three applicants, and the "raduga.rf" domain was being claimed by five applicants. According to the current Regulation on Priority Registration of Russian Federation Domains, the domain is registered in the name of the first copyright holder to apply.
In Ukraine at the moment there is onlyunder discussionintroduction of a Cyrillic domain. Although the preliminary registration period is already actively underway in RuNet, many analysts believe thatinputCyrillic domains mean the isolation of individual segments of the Internet.
The example of Russia and the situation with domain name registration in the .РФ zone demonstrates the pitfalls that Ukraine may face when launching the .УКР domain.
