Domains

Some countries regulate the length of the domain name, but most do not set restrictions. In particular, it is impossible to get into the Guinness Book of Records due to the length of such a name, since no effort is required for this effort. A domain zone is a collection of all names of a given level included in a domain. For example, in the domain zone "itpedia.ru" (second-level domain name), all third-level names can be included: "domain.itpedia.ru" or "zone.itpedia.ru." With the increase in the number of active users, the number of people wishing to start their own website or organize Internet support for their own project is also growing. Thus, the value of easily remembered names is growing. The sale of domain names has become a serious business. An example is a recent deal: the toys.com domain was sold for $5.1 million. For a time of crisis, this sale will surely be the largest. Although for 2008 such amounts were not fabulous. The vodka.com domain went under the hammer for $3 million, and the domain pizza.com for $3.6 million.

Domain System Regulation

2018: US wants to take back control of domain system

The National USA Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is ready to reconsider its decision to abandon the responsible management of IANA functions (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, or "Address Space Administration Internet"). The question of whether this should be done and, if so, how, and if not why, was raised by the NTIA for discussion by all stakeholders, which will last until July 2, the National Internet Domain Coordination Center reported on June 6, 2018, citing Domain Incite. More. here

Domain zones on the blockchain

.ETH Domain Zone

Main article: Ethereum Name Service (.ETH)

Biggest Domain Name Deals

2024

Buying a $10 million Fund.com domain turned out to be a hoax

In March 2008, it became known about the purchase of the Fund.com domain for $10 million. Some experts have questioned the truth of this information from the outset. However, they could not prove their point of view, and in the end, the purchase of Fund.com by a wide margin topped the rating of the largest domain transactions of the year according to the authoritative resource DN Journal. This was announced on August 14, 2024 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC).

The domain was acquired by entrepreneur Jason Galanis to create a multidisciplinary financial service with the same name. But, as follows from the now available court documents, this service was nothing more than a large-scale fraudulent scheme. Part of the fraud was the fictitious purchase of a domain name for a lot of money. In the language of exchange players, this is called the pump and dump strategy - artificially overpricing a deliberately cheap asset and drawing attention to it in order to sell it as expensive as possible. As it turned out, several bogus transactions were used to demonstrate the payment of $10 million.

But the "criminal history" of the Fund.com domain does not end there either. In 2016, Galanis's company - which, however, left it a long time ago - was in distress. Thomas Brazile, who was previously among the investors, was appointed external manager Fund.com. Apparently, he understood that buying a domain for $10 million was a pure fiction, but a huge amount was only in his hands. Brazile sold the domain for $1.5 million, and 8.5 million - the difference between a fictitious purchase and a real sale - issued as a loss from operating activities in order to achieve a reduction in the amount of tax.

In 2020, a court in New York sentenced Jason Galanis to almost 16 years in prison for fraud. And in the summer of 2024, a court in Delaware ruled that Thomas Brazile would have to pay about $2 million for his machinations. It remains to wait for the purchase of Fund.com to be excluded from the ranking of the largest deals of 2008.

The amount for which the domain was purchased has been disclosed Gold.com

In March 2024, it became known that JM Bullion, an online precious metals trading company, acquired a domain name Gold.com. The amount of the transaction was not disclosed at that moment, but became known now, thanks to the efforts of domain blogger George Kirikos. This was announced on May 13, 2024 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC). Over the years, it has been examining reports filed quarterly by equity firms with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and published on its website. Sometimes these reports also reveal information about purchases or sales of domain names with the exact amounts.

This is what happened in this case. In A-Mark Precious Metals, Inc. (which is the parent company of JM Bullion)'s first-quarter report, George Kirikos found the acquisition of "intangible assets" in March 2024 for a total of 8.5 million. dollars After the publication of this information, several professional domain resources immediately turned for comment to broker Andrew Miller, who was involved in accompanying the sale Gold.com. Miller stressed that he is not entitled to disclose the amounts of transactions if information about them remains confidential, but if the information is already published, he can do this without violating his obligations. He also named the exact amount of the purchase: it amounted to 8,515,000. dollars

Thus, the sale of the Gold.com domain tops the rating of the largest domain transactions of the year, by a huge margin ahead of the previous leader - the sale of the TP.com domain name for $1,200,000. Moreover, as reported by the DN Journal resource, this transaction is also one of the ten largest domain transactions in the history of the industry (of course, we are talking only about transactions about which information is available in the public domain).

2023: OpenAI buys AI.com domain for $11 million

The company, a OpenAI developer chat boat based on, artificial intelligence ChatGPT bought the domain AI.com. This was reported on February 20, 2023 in. According "Coordination Center for Domains.RU/.РФ" to the center's specialists, the deal has excellent chances to become, if not the largest, then one of the largest in the domain market in 2023. More. here

2022

Recorded the largest deal since the beginning of the year in national domain zones

The DN Journal resource has published another update to the rating of the largest domain transactions, information about which appears in the public domain. This was announced on September 14, 2022 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC).

In three weeks, 7 transactions worth 100 thousand dollars or more were concluded at once. The largest of them was the sale of the CognitiveAutomation.com domain - he changed ownership for 260 thousand dollars. At the same time, initially the buyer and the seller agreed on an even larger amount - 300 thousand, but the payment was supposed to be in installments for two years. As a result, the buyer found an opportunity to pay immediately, and the seller agreed to reduce the price by 40 thousand dollars.

Of other transactions, the purchase of a Vacanze.it domain in the national domain of Italy (the word Vacanze means "vacation," "weekend") attracts attention. The domain was acquired for 170 thousand dollars, and this is the largest transaction in national domain zones since the beginning of 2022. It should also be noted that buyers are increasingly looking to acquire domain names for cryptocurrency, while sellers remain more conservative and want to receive money in dollars or euros. In these situations, brokers have to resort to the help of special services that ensure the conversion of funds. Such services were used to conclude at least three of the ten largest transactions of the last three weeks^[1] has^[2].

Total registered 156 million transactions with domain names

Renowned domain analyst Bob Hawkes has published a review on the Namepros professional forum on domain name deals ranging from $1 million. This was announced on September 12, 2022 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC). Registering a successful domain name and enriching yourself on its sale is the dream of many domain investors, especially beginners. But bringing it to life is extremely difficult.

From 1999 to September 2022, only 156 were registered (hereinafter we are talking about transactions, information about which exists in the public domain and is entered into the database of the NameBio resource. The largest is the sale of the Voice.com domain for $30 million in 2019, and the largest number of seven-figure domain transactions - more than 15 - fell on 2021. But this does not mean that the chances of a big jackpot will continue to grow: 2000 holds the second place in the number of million transactions.

The vast majority of deals worth more than a million dollars are in names in the.COM. There are only 5 exceptions - two in the national domain Great Britain and one more in the national domain Germany and.ORG and.XXX domain zones. The analyst also clarifies that it should be known that the lion's share of domain names purchased for $1 million or more consists of a very small number of characters - from 2 to 7. These are overwhelmingly Latin letters and English words. There are only 6 "digital" names in the list - 4 out of two characters and 2 out of three. There are no names that are combinations of letters and numbers in the list, as there are no names that include the hyphen sign.

In conclusion, Bob noted that among the sites operating on domains acquired for $1 million and above, the majority are resources that are somehow related to the financial sphere - from banking services to cryptocurrency projects.

Domain SBR.org auctioned off for $5,705

trade The next auction of domain names, the registration of which was not extended by the previous owners, has ended at the DropCatch site. The domain name of the SBR.org deserves attention, for which the winner of the auction paid 5,705. dollars This was announced on February 28, 2022. National Internet Domain Coordination Center (CC) More. here

2021: Go Daddy's purchase of 30 domains for $120 million

Go Daddy has announced the purchase of 30 domain zones for a total of $120 million. These include domains controlled by the MMX registry, as well as.CLUB and.DESIGN domains, the Coordination Center of Domains.RU/.RF reported on April 8, 2021. Read more here.

2020: Big year-end deals

Domain Name Journal, which ranks domain deals, has published the latest updates in 2020. The leader was the Engage.com domain, the sale of which for 803,025 dollars has already been reported earlier. In addition, two more "six-figure" transactions were registered: the domains of JHX.com and Spectacle.com changed their owners for 100 thousand dollars each, according to December 28, 2020 in Coordination Center of Domains.RU/.РФ"."

Among the national domains, the leader was Bank.io, sold for 80 thousand dollars. As of the end of 2020, this is the eighth largest transaction of the year in national domain zones. Also, the CC noted the sale of the FV.de domain for 58 thousand euros ($70,760 at the exchange rate at the time of the transaction).

Finally, domains new at the time of publication of the material were also noted as a very serious deal: the domain name My.club was acquired for 45 thousand dollars. This brings the purchase to 7th place in the ranking of transactions in non-national and.COM.

Zone.net

$50,000

.net domain Galileo sold for 50 thousand. dollars This was National Internet Domain Coordination Center (CC) announced on August 1, 2022.

It was registered back in 1997, and for a long time it was owned by an Italian registrant. For unknown reasons, he did not renew the registration of the domain name in early 2022, as a result of which the domain was available for re-registration and was put up for auction on the GoDaddy trading platform.

The auction did not arouse particularly great interest, the winner of the auction acquired Galileo.net for a completely adequate amount, according to analysts, of $4,050. And a month and a half later, The Domains reported that the domain name Galileo.net sold for $50,000. We can only congratulate the seller who in just a month provided a tenfold return on his investment. As of August 1, 2022, the domain does not respond to requests.

Zone.ru

Game Media acquired the Casino.ru domain for $250,000. This is the largest transaction in the.RU zone for 2008.

Zone.com

2019: The most expensive domains sold for all time

In early August 2019, Hover unveiled a list of the seven most expensive domain names ever sold in the secondary market.

1. lasvegas.com sold for $90 million

The deal, which excluded termination on the part of the buyer, was concluded in 2005 between the buyer, the online travel agency Vegas.com, and the seller Stephens Media,

2. carinsurance.com sold for $49.7 million

In 2010, QuinStreet, a California-based marketing company, acquired carinsurance.com for $49.7 million. Prior to that, QuinStreet acquired other insurance domain names: in 2009, QuinStreet acquired the domain name and insure.com website for $16 million, and in 2010 bought insurance.com (along with other related assets) for $35.6 million.

3. insurance.com sold for $35.6 million

See above - the buyer is the same, QuinStreet.

4. privatejet.com sold for $30.2 million

The privatejet.com domain name was sold in 2012 to Nations Luxury Transportation, which provides travel services. The seller was the leading intellectual property holding company Don't Look Media.com.

5. voice.com sold for $30 million

Voice.com was sold in 2019 to Block.one for their new social media platform. The domain name was originally owned by MicroStrategy Incorporated, which provides business intelligence and mobile software services.

6. internet.com sold for $18 million

In 2009 QuinStreet got from the news agency WebMediaBrands a number of domain names, including InternetNews.com, Webopedia.com, ServerWatch.com, DatabaseJournal.com, Datamation.com, eSecurityPlanet.com, EnterpriseNetworkingPlanet.com, SmallBusinessComputing.com and Developer.com.

7. 360. com sold for $17 million

Chinese company Qihoo 360 Technology acquired the domain name in 2015 from European telecommunications company Vodafone. The domain name redirects to its original domain name 360totalsecurity.com.^[3]

$30 million

On June 19, 2019, information appeared that the company MicroStrategy announced the sale domain of a Voice.com. belonging to it. The buyer was a company Block.One that is positioned as an "application for social media based on - blockchain technology." The deal amounted to 30 million. dollars More. here

$15 million

The domain name NFTS.com changed ownership for $15 million. This is reported by the Domain Incite resource, referring to the information of the Escrow.com service, which deposited funds to ensure the security of the transaction. The brokers of the deal were Domainer.com and GoDaddy. This was announced on August 4, 2022 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC).

Thus, we can safely talk not only about concluding the largest domain transaction of the year, but also about the second largest transaction in the history of the industry (of which information has ever become public). The purchase of NFTS.com surpasses the deal with the Sex.com domain, sold in 2013 for $13 million, and is second only to the sale of the domain Voice.com. It was acquired for $30 million in 2019.

The buyer's name has not been disclosed, and his plans for the domain are also unknown. They, however, do not cause much doubt. The popularity of non-fungible tokens (NFT) - primarily for digital art objects - is so great and allows you to earn so much money that it would be simply strange not to use the NFTS.com domain for these purposes. By the way, the Voice.com domain, originally purchased for a completely different project, serves for a site that allows you to purchase and sell NFT art objects.

$14.5 million

The sex.com domain was sold for $14.5 million to Playboy in October 2006.

$11 million

According to Online Domain on December 9, 2018, Elon Musk the co-founder and CEO Tesla finally disclosed the cost of acquiring the Tesla.com domain name in February 2016. As he wrote in his, it "twitter" took him "more than 10 years, 11 million dollars and an unimaginable amount of effort" to buy Tesla.com. More. here

$10 million

Sale of Connect.com

Domain blogger George Kirikos reported another interesting find. This became known on August 8, 2022. He specializes in studying the financial statements submitted by companies to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, often finding in these documents information about the purchase of domain names that had not previously been made public. True, some time ago, Kirikos announced a "strike," offended by the fact that information resources publish the results of his research, without referring to himself: he said that he would stop reporting new finds by the end of the year.

However, George Kyrikos broke his promise, citing the importance of the information found. After reviewing the report of the technology company Hubspot, he found out that in the second quarter of 2022 it acquired the domain Connect.com. More precisely information , about its purchase appeared in mid-April, but the amount of the transaction was not disclosed. Now Kyrikos has established that the company paid 10 million for the domain. dollars This makes the deal the second largest since the beginning of the year: a few days earlier, it became known that the NFTS.com domain had changed ownership for $15 million.

Sale of Bird.com

On February 9, 2022, it was reported that the Bird.com domain was sold for more than $10 million.

Notably, the domain almost sold at Right of the Dot for $2.5 million a year ago. "Almost," because the winner of the auction, who offered this amount for the domain, was unable to pay it in the end. He referred to the fact that the financial partners who guaranteed him support at the last moment refused to fulfill their obligations, the Coordination Center of Domains told.RU/.RF.

The scandal turned out to be loud. The domain owner and Right of the Dot intended to sue the unfortunate buyer. But then the passions subsided: there was information that Right of the Dot, feeling its own responsibility, undertook to act as a broker and was able to sell the Bird.com on very favorable terms. Neither the amount of the transaction nor information about the buyer appeared in the public domain.

Now the story has found a second wind. Some time ago, one of the observers noticed that the current registrant of the domain, whose data is hidden in the Whois record by privacy settings, is registered in the Netherlands. This suggested that the domain was acquired by the Dutch company MessageBird. It provides companies with a single cloud platform for marketing communications with customers with the ability to use voice chats, SMS, WhatsApp messages, etc. MessageBird's customers include companies such as Facebook (Meta), Uber and Airbnb, and the amount of investment it has attracted has already exceeded $1 billion.

In early February, the Tech.eu resource, citing its sources, confirmed that the Bird.com domain was acquired by MessageBird, and the deal exceeded $10 million. Domain investor and blogger Elliot Silver, author and publisher of Domain Investing, asked Mont Cana, head of Right of the Dot, who, as already mentioned, accompanied the deal, to comment on this information.

'Unfortunately, I can't talk about the price. However, this is one of the largest deals not only in the last year, but also in history, "Monte Can said in response to a request from Elliot Silver.

According to the DN Journal resource, the largest transaction in 2021 was the purchase of the Hippo.com domain for $3,300,000. However, the resource publishes only information about transactions, information about which appeared in the public domain. And Mont Can is surely aware of purchases that have not been made public.^[4]

$9.99 million

Domain Fund.com sold for $9,999,950 in 2008. According to the Domain Name Wire resource, this transaction turned out to be a fraud.^[5]

$4.7 million

2013 record holder: British financial firm IG Group acquired the IG.com domain from Brazilian telecommunications firm IG for $4.7 million.

$3.85 million

The YP.com domain was sold for $3.85 million by Yellow Pages LiveDeal in 2008.

$3.8 million

Resource DN Journal, the leading rating of the largest domain transactions, information about which appears in the public domain, announced the change of the leader of this rating in 2021. The domain name IT.com sold for $3.8 million. Thus, the domain ranks first in the annual ranking, immediately bypassing the previous leader, the domain, by 500 thousand dollars Hippo.com. This was announced on October 28, 2021 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC).

No details are known - except that the seller of the domain name was domain investor James But, who shared this news with DN Journal. However, it is obvious that the buyer will become known in the near future - as soon as the site starts working on the domain. Acquiring such a valuable domain and not using it would be at least strange. It is worth adding that 2021 has become extremely generous with large domain transactions. Already in October 2021, in the first hundred of the DN Journal rating, there is not a single deal below $100,000.

$3.5 million

The Ice.com domain, registered in 1990, was sold for $3.5 million in July 2018. Before the deal, it was owned by an online jewellery trading company. As of July 18, 2018, the Ice.com domain did not respond to requests, and its Whois record is protected by privacy settings, so it is impossible to name the current owner. According to the assumptions of domain blogger Konstantinos Zurnas, the financial company InterContinental Exchange (ICE) could become the buyer of the domain. As of July 19, when trying to open the site, the user's Ice.com redirects to the theice.com resource owned by InterContinental Exchange (ICE).

$3.3 million

August 23 National Internet Domain Coordination Center (CC) , 2021 shared TAdviser information with about the largest domain transaction of the year.

According to representatives of the CC, almost every week has recently brought information about large domain transactions. The end of August 2021 was marked by two events at once. So, the Near.com domain was sold for 1.15 million. dollars The buyer was the Singapore Near, which develops a service for finding partners and customers in geographical proximity for small medium-sized businesses. Obviously, the domain fits the company as well as possible. The deal took eighth place in the ranking of the most expensive domain purchases of the year, but almost immediately dropped to ninth.

Information about the second transaction was provided by domain investor and blogger George Kirikos, who specializes in studying financial reports filed by public companies with the Securities and Exchange Commission and published on the commission's website. This is extremely painstaking work, but from time to time it allows you to disclose the amounts that companies spend on acquiring domains whose purchases are not publicly reported. George Kirikos disclosed that insurance technology company Hippo Enterprises spent $3.3 million in the first quarter to acquire the domain name. Comparing this information, the name of the company and the fact that just in the 1st quarter the registrar of the Hippo.com domain changed, Kyrikos came to the conclusion that it was this domain and precisely for this amount that Hippo Enterprises acquired. Thus, the deal with Hippo.com comes out on top in the ranking of the year, ahead of the Christmas.com domain, which sold for $3.15 million, the resource DN Journal reported.

$2.45 million

In 2012, the largest amount in the.com zone was paid for the Investing.com domain - $2.45 million.

$2.27 million

The Domains resource on April 8, 2024 announced the registration of the largest transaction with domain names since the beginning of 2024 (of information those that are publicly available). The Printing.com domain name changed ownership for 2.27 million. dollars The seller was the British Software Circle plc, and the buyer was JAL the American Equity Corp.

A press release issued by Software Circle plc in this regard says that the domain has served its business for two decades and occupies a special place in the history of the company, since, in fact, this story began with it. However, as the company developed, more and more of its operations switched to the Nettl Systems brand, and the Printing.com brand and domain were used less. As a result, the management of Software Circle plc considered it reasonable to sell the domain and use the funds received to strengthen financial positions and possible future acquisitions.

According to the agreement, payment for the domain will be made in two tranches. The first of these in the amount of 0.23 million dollars has already been paid. The remaining $2.04 million must be paid to JAL Equity Corp by July 31, 2024. This means that the sale of the Printing.com domain cannot be included in the ratings of major domain deals of the year until the full value of the domain name specified in the contract is paid.

$2.1 and $2.4 million

The top three most expensive domain purchases in the.com zone in 2013 included KK.com domains - $2,400,000 and 114.com - $2,100,000.

$1.76 million

The Fly.com domain was sold for $1,760,000 in early 2009 to Travelzoo.

$1.75 million

In 2010, Dating.com was sold for $1.75 million.

$1.5 million

Your domain sale has been closed Room.com. The sellers were experienced domain investor Michael Castello and famous American radio host Walt "Baby" Love (real name Walter Shaw), who jointly owned the domain. The buyer is Room, a company specializing in office interior design. This was announced on September 14, 2023 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC).

I've always believed in maximizing the potential of domain names in the hands of worthy companies, "Castello said.

As a result, a few days ago, Room transferred $250,000 to sellers at once, closing the deal a year ahead of schedule. Its current financial condition has made it quite possible to do this, and there is no doubt that the success of the company was largely facilitated by the use of a successful domain name.

$1.26 million

In 2010, Т-Shirts.com was sold for $1.26 million.

$1.2 million

In February 2018, the Super.com domain changed ownership for $1.2 million. This is the largest deal carried out on the NameJet site in its history.

$1 million

2019: Sale of RX.com

On August 12, 2019, it became known that the domain name of the RX.com was acquired on the Sedo trading platform for $1 million. The transaction was reported by Domain Investing. Thus, the RX.com domain became the third in the list of the most expensive purchases in the domain market since the beginning of the year. It is known that the domain was acquired by Brent Oxley, an entrepreneur and domain investor from Texas, noted in the "Coordination Center for Domains.RU/.RF."

Recently, Oxley has been actively investing in the acquisition of potentially profitable domain names, observers said. His other recent purchases include Texas.com, Bachelor.com, Rookie.com and Dust.com. However, RX.com 's million-dollar purchase is the costliest of its August 2019 acquisitions.

Two-letter names in the.COM top-level common domain are by definition considered "elite." Additional value can be attached to the existence of similar abbreviations. In the case of RX, there are many such abbreviations, but most often this combination of letters is used in the United States to denote medicines issued only by a doctor's prescription. Accordingly, it can be assumed that it would be logical to create a medical or pharmaceutical site on the domain. Analysts, however, doubt that Brent Oxley himself is interested in this. It is much more likely that he acquired the domain name for subsequent resale at a more favorable price.

2010: Sale of Zip.com

In 2010, the Zip.com domain was sold for more than $1 million.

$900,000

In February 2018, the Great.com domain was sold for 900 thousand dollars.

$600,000

Entrepreneur Eric Borgos announced the sale of the domain name Yachts.com. This was announced by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC) on June 16, 2022. The domain was acquired by him about a year ago for 350 thousand dollars. And over the past time, Borgos has tried to use the domain name to start several business projects. He intended to buy yachts, sell them, rent them out and even deal with their insurance. None of the undertakings were successful, perhaps.

Eric Borgos parted ways with the Yachts.com domain, selling it for $600,000. As of June 2022, this is the seventh of the largest domain transactions registered since the beginning of the year (of which information is published in the public domain). How much Borgos managed to spend on his unsuccessful endeavors is unknown, but in any case he was left not empty-handed.

It is noteworthy that this is the second case of this kind in his business career. Domain Name Wire reports that Eric Borgos previously acquired the domain for $200,000 adventure.com. An attempt to launch a business with it also failed, but the domain was also sold more expensive than it was bought.

$350,000

In late October 2021, the Great Domains auction ended on the Sedo trading floor. His most expensive lot was the Portugal.com domain: it was sold for 350 thousand dollars. Initially, the seller of the domain name determined very wide limits of the minimum amount for which he is ready to make a deal - from 250 to 500 thousand dollars. As a result, the amount of 350 thousand obviously arranged it. According to auction rules, the transaction is considered closed if the amount is paid in full. And judging by Sedo's announcement on Twitter, this has already happened. The Whois entry on November 3, 2021 indicates that the domain is awaiting transfer under the control of the GoDaddy registrar. Who became the buyer of the domain name is unknown. Domain Investing, reporting this news, suggested that the domain was acquired by investor Andrew Rosener, who had long lived in Portugal, but he had already stated that he had nothing to do with the transaction.

Previously, domains in the.COM zone, whose names coincide with the name of the countries, were purchased for significantly larger amounts. Therefore, we can assume that the buyer was Portugal.com very lucky. Recently, the situation has changed: in 2021, the French authorities won a dispute in a US court for the right to manage the France.com domain, and it cannot be ruled out that the governments of other countries will use this precedent.

$300,000

The domain YourRide.com sold for 300 thousand dollars. This was announced on May 12, 2023 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC).

Domain investor and blogger Elliot Silver announced a major deal. In early 2023, he announced that he was suspending his Domain Investing blog to focus on domain name operations. However, Silver makes exceptions for truly significant events. These, of course, include the largest domain transactions.

In early May, the domain changed ownership YourRide.com. The seller was entrepreneur Adam Strong, who owns a large portfolio of several tens of thousands of premium domain names. The transaction was supported by Evergreen, and its amount amounted to 300 thousand dollars. After the deal is entered into the NameBio and DN Journal resource databases, it will share 7-8 places with the sale of the TXT.com domain in the ranking of the largest domain transactions since the beginning of 2023 (we are talking, of course, about transactions, information about which is available in the public domain). Information about the buyer of the YourRide.com domain for May 2023 is not available.

$205,000

The domain CyberSecurityJobs.com sold for 205 thousand. dollars This was announced on March 14, 2022. National Internet Domain Coordination Center (CC)

The profession of cybersecurity specialist is becoming more and more in demand from year to year, and the demand for highly qualified professionals in this area is constantly growing - along with the increase in the number of cyberattacks and their sophistication. Another confirmation of this was provided by the "related" industry - the domain. On March 11, 2022, a deal was concluded on the Sedo domain trading platform to sell the CyberSecurityJobs.com domain name (it translates as "work in cybersecurity"). The buyer paid $205,000 for him.

The record among all domains using the word jobs belongs to the Jobs.com itself - back in 2003 it was sold for 800 thousand dollars. But among the domains in which the word jobs is an integral part, CyberSecurityJobs.com became the leader. Following him are Teachingjobs.com (89,250 dollars, the deal was registered in August 2012), Wirelessjobs.com (85 thousand dollars, June 2009) and Truckdrivingjobs.com (80 thousand dollars, September 2014). Who acquired the CyberSecurityJobs.com domain and how it will be used is unknown as of March 14, 2022.

Up to $200 thousand

2023: Domain PDN.com auctioned for $143,000

The domain name PDN.com purchased at DropCatch for $143,000. This was announced on August 7, 2023 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC). Previously, the domain was owned by Paula Deen Ventures; according to Domain Name Wire, it acquired it in 2014 at the Sedo site for $27,900. The company manages the projects of Paula Dean - a star chef and TV presenter. Dean owns a restaurant, hosts several cooking shows on the Food Network, and is the author of several recipe books.

The official website of Paula Din works on the PaulaDeen.com domain, and the PDN.com domain for a long time served only for forwarding to this site. How the company managing business projects managed not to extend the registration of a three-letter domain name in the.COM zone is decidedly impossible to understand. The value of such assets should be obvious even to people far from the domain business, not to mention the fact that the purchase of the domain and subsequent renewals of its registration cost the company a considerable amount, which can now be considered lost. True, some analysts suggest that the company may try to return the domain by filing a complaint under the Unified UDRP Domain Dispute Resolution Policy. However, the chances of success in this case are not obvious: the combination of the letters PDN can be an abbreviation for almost anything. And if the registrant does not directly hurt the business interests of Paula Dean, he may well keep the domain behind him.

2022: Sale of Medal.com for $185.7 thousand.

At the DropCatch site, the auction ended, for which the domain name was put up Medal.com. This was announced by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC) on August 22, 2022. The domain is certainly in the premium category.

The domain name was originally registered back in 1995. And in 2015, Medal.Inc. acquired the domain, specializing in storage, processing data protection medical and organizations.

In 2020, this company became part of the larger Ciox Health. The amount of the transaction was not disclosed, but a year later Ciox Health itself was absorbed by Datavant, the size of the transaction is $7 billion . As a result, the Medal brand, apparently, was simply forgotten - as well as a very valuable domain name.

When the domain registration period expired, the DropCatch service turned out to be faster than others, re-registering the name and putting it up for auction. According to Domain Investing, the auction lasted several days and ended with the victory of the user under the nickname noklag: he offered $185,728 for the domain. At the same time, analysts are confident that this is a very modest amount for such a promising domain name^[6].

Up to $100,000

Sale of UFOs.com for $88 thousand.

At the GoDaddy site, the auction ended, for which the domain name of the UFOs.com was put up, the registration of which expired and was not extended in a timely manner. The starting price of the lot was $9,100, as a result, the domain was sold for $88 thousand, the Coordination Center of Domains.RU/.RF reported on February 11, 2021.

According to the CC, in this story it is not the amount of the purchase that is much more important, but the circumstances that preceded the auction. Domain registration was not renewed in time because its registrar, Harry Josephy de Ligter, head of Lightworks Audio and Video, Inc. (for whose site the domain served), suddenly died in November 2020 from a heart attack.

Unfortunately, none of his employees knew passwords from the boss's accounts. They were not known to family members - the widow of the deceased, his two sisters, two sons and a grandson. As a result, they simply could not extend the registration, and did not receive a cent from the sale of the domain - all the funds went to the registrar, GoDaddy. And formally, everything that happened is absolutely legal and correct, but we hardly have to talk about justice.

This case raises the question of the rules of will and inheritance of domain names. So far, they have not been regulated in any way, but the need to do this is obviously ripe, according to the Coordination Center. In the meantime, domain investors, mindful that no one is eternal, should consult with lawyers and representatives of registrar companies. In this regard, we can recall a case three years ago when a domain name was almost put up for auction under similar circumstances Carrot.com. His registrant also died suddenly, and the family also did not have the opportunity to extend the registration. But two influential domain investors drew attention to the situation. And, using their connections in the industry, they were able to ensure that the heirs of the registrant extended the registration and re-registered the domain to themselves. Subsequently, the heirs sold the Carrot.com domain for 600 thousand dollars. The heirs of Harry Josephy de Ligter, alas, were unlucky.

Sale of Therapists.com for $91.2 thousand.

On April 16, 2020, it became known that the Domain Name Journal Resource published a list of the largest domain transactions in the first half of April. It captures in general the usual dominance of the common top-level domain.COM: it accounted for 8 out of the 10 largest transactions. It is curious that at the beginning of March the situation remained exactly the opposite for a short time: the top ten included only two names in the.COM domain, and the leading positions were occupied by national domains, as well as.ORG and.NET domains. Now.COM "takes revenge."

The leader was the Therapists.com domain, which changed ownership for $91,183. Attention should also be paid to buying Cappuccino.com domains for 49 thousand dollars and Searcher.com for 40 thousand dollars.^[7]

The hegemony of.COM in the top ten of the rating was able to violate only the German national domain.DE (see the section Zone.De).

Up to $50,000

According to trade the Sedo domain site report for the period from July 20 to 26, 2020, the largest transactions in the.COM zone were purchases of melp.com domains (for 50 thousand) dollars and through.com (for 35,500). This was reported on July 29, 2020 Coordination center of domains.RU/.РФ in (CC) with reference to the resource The Domains.

Zone.De

Up to $200 thousand

At the trade Sedo domain site, the name of the Termin.de in the national domain Germany was acquired for 150 thousand euros. This was announced on April 20, 2022. National Internet Domain Coordination Center (CC) This is the largest transaction in national domain zones since the beginning of 2022, previously the first place was held by the Drive.us domain, sold in March for 99,999 (dollars we are talking, of course, about transactions information that are publicly available).

The word Termin translates from German as "meeting," "scheduled event." According to available information, the domain was acquired by a company that is working on an application that combines data from various calendars and schedulers. It was Termin.de who topped the list of the largest purchases of the week on Sedo. In addition, the German national domain was marked by several more rather significant transactions: the e-bikes.de name was sold for 12 thousand euros, and the protektas.de name for 9,900 euros. In the.COM domain zone, the leader was the zexa.com domain, acquired for 25 thousand dollars. The playmatrix.com domain was very slightly behind him - $24,995. In the category "other domain zones" the first place in the transaction with the creator.app domain is 19 thousand dollars.

Up to $100,000

As it became known on April 16, 2020, the national domain Germany.DE was marked by two transactions: the UHR.de domain was purchased for 70 thousand euros (76,300 dollars at the exchange rate at the time of purchase, 2nd place on the list), and the WI.de domain - for 29,750 euros (32,428 dollars, 5th place).

Zone.UK

$242.1 thousand

According to the report on transactions from July 20 to 26, 2020, provided by the domain trading platform Sedo, domain names in the.COM zone have traditionally been in the greatest demand - they accounted for 61 out of 83 transactions. Among the largest are the purchase of domains melp.com (for 50 thousand dollars) and through.com (for 35,500), the Coordination Center for Domains.RU/.RF (CC) reported on July 29, 2020, citing the resource The Domains.

However, the leader of the week was the domain name in the national Great Britain domain.UK. The it.co.uk domain was acquired for £187,200, totalling 242,106 at the dollars time of the deal.

Details about the buyer and seller are unknown. As of July, the purchase of it.co.uk is still in sixth place in the list of the largest domain transactions of the year - among those about which information is available in open sources.

Zone.GL

$25,000

The Sedo domain trading platform on June 10, 2021 announced the results of the first summer week. The leader was the T.GL domain, which changed its owner for 25 thousand dollars. The amount may seem quite modest, but for the national domain of Greenland this is without exaggeration an outstanding result, noted in the Coordination Center of Domains.RU/.RF. Domains in the.GL zone are often advertised as related to wishing good luck (from the English good luck), and yet such large deals here are a rarity.

And in general, the national domains performed well in the first June week at the Sedo site. Thus, the fastighetsmäklare.se domain was purchased for 13,000 euros, and the saxo.nl domain - for 11,750 euros. Among the domain names in the.COM zone, the first place is taken by the healthyways.com domain, which changed ownership for $23,000. In just a week, 33 domains in the.COM zone and 21 names in the national domain zones were sold on the site. Another 6 deals fell on the common top-level domains.ORG,.NET and.PARIS, The Domains reported.^[8]

.Games zone

$335 thousand.

On June 6, 2019, it became known about the sale of the FREE.GAMES domain, which changed ownership for $335 thousand. According to the DN Journal resource, this is the largest deal for new domains since the beginning of 2019. In general, in the ranking of the largest transactions of the year, the sale of FREE.GAMES is located in 8th place and is the only one that does not belong to the.COM domain.

According to the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet, the seller was a domain investor who had previously acquired the domain from the registry. This investor is Chad Wright, head of WebQuest. According to Domain Name Wire, he previously acquired three premium domain names from the Rightside registry, which managed the.GAMES domain zone (part of Donuts): FREE.GAMES, SHOOTING.GAMES and RACING.GAMES for a total of $100,000. Thus, the current sale of only one of these names more than recouped their acquisition.

At the same time, Chad Wright himself believes that he sold the domain name for the lowest possible price. He noted that he could wait for the right moment and sell the domain significantly more expensive. But as Wright explained, he urgently needs funds to invest in cryptocurrency.

Zone.app

$200,000

On April 2, 2020, the "Coordination Center for Domains.RU/.RF" (CC) announced a large domain transaction: the Shop.app domain was acquired on the Sedo trading platform for 200 thousand dollars. This allows you to include the purchase in the top five largest transactions since the beginning of 2020 and in the top ten largest transactions in new domains for their entire existence.

The domain was registered in May 2018, during the so-called Early Access Period (EAP), announced by Google. During this period, registrants were the first to register premium domain names, paying a higher price for them. The annual registration cost $12,500, another about 2 thousand dollars the registrar twice had to pay for the extension of the registration of the premium name. Thus, approximately $16,500 was spent on the domain, and the profit was $183,500.

The investor's name is unknown, his data was hidden by privacy settings. But it is known that the Shop.app buyer was Shopify, a software developer for online stores and retailers. Previously, the company has already acquired a domain Shopapp.com.

Domain disputes

2024

Alibaba loses domain dispute after 44 wins

Alibaba lost the first domain dispute after 44 victories. This was announced by the Coordination Center of the Government of the Russian Federation on June 24, 2024.

The arbitrator of the arbitration center of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Kiyoshi Tsuru ruled on the complaint filed under the Unified Policy for the Resolution of Domain Disputes UDRP to the domain name of the Alibaba.mx in the national domain of Mexico. The complaint was filed by the Chinese company Alibaba. The defendant was the Mexican company Alibaba Alimentos Balanceados de Belleza, which produces feed and food additives for farm animals.

The balance of power looked initially unequal. Moreover, Alibaba registered its trademark in Mexico in the fall of 2005, and the defendant filed an application for registration of the ALIBABA ALIMENTOS BALANCEADOS DE BALLEZA trademark only in 2023. However, the Chinese company could not provide any significant evidence of the main thing: that the domain was acquired or used to the detriment of its interests. For June 2024, visitors who have moved to Alibaba.mx are greeted by a page with the Alibaba Alimentos Balanceados de Belleza logo and a notification that the company's online store will soon work here. And although the domain name really completely coincides with the name of the Alibaba trademark, the fact of illegal use of the domain name is more important for the Unified Policy for Resolving Domain Disputes. And it was not possible to establish it. As a result, the complaint was dismissed.

Tesla loses dispute over TeslaShop.com domain name

Tesla lost a dispute over the domain name TeslaShop.com. This was announced on June 17, 2024 by the Coordination Center of the Government of the Russian Federation.

On the specified domain there is a Polish site selling spare parts for Tesla cars. The greeting on the start page says that the company that owns the site admires Tesla cars immensely, but at the same time knows about the difficulties faced by their owners ‒ including due to the extraordinary high cost of spare parts. From this we can conclude that the company sells not original, but at the same time not counterfeit spare parts, thus remaining within the legal framework. As for the Unified Policy for the Resolution of Domain Disputes, there is an important exception in it, which Tesla lawyers probably forgot about, but did not forget Arbitrator Samuels.

The fact is that the rule on the unfair use of brand names does not apply to companies that, within the framework of the law, provide service services to products of these brands and provide parts and spare parts for them. Geoffrey M. Samuels ruled that the TeslaShop.com case refers precisely to such exceptions. In addition, the arbitrator noted that it is quite obvious to any visitor to the site that it is not a Tesla resource and is not trying to impress in any way. As a result, Tesla's complaint was dismissed.

2023

The world has recorded a record number of disputes around domains

In 2023, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) recorded a record number of applications for the resolution of domain disputes - 6192. This is 7.4% more than in the previous year, when 5764 appeals were registered. Such data are reflected in the study, the results of which were released at the end of January 2024.

The review noted that the activity of disputes over domain rights has been steadily growing since 2013, when 2585 relevant applications were sent. WIPO associates the observed trend with the general increase in the number of domain name registrations, as well as with a change in the nature of cybersquatting - the registration of domains containing a trademark, corporate name or commercial designation belonging to another person. Many of the disputes initiated are related to the fight against fraud, malicious ON and phishing attacks, as well as the distribution of counterfeit products and unlicensed pharmaceuticals.

Although most cases in 2023 involved the.com domain (approximately 80% of disputes), there has been an increase in disputes related to national top-level domains (ccTLDs), in particular.ai (Anguilla),.au Australia (),.cn (),.eu China (),. European Union ma () and.mx Morocco (). Mexico In Anguilla's case, the jump is explained by the fact that its spelling code coincides with the English-language abbreviation (artificial intelligence artificial intelligence), which is rapidly developing around the world.

As noted by the French company IP Twins, the WIPO data does not reflect the picture as a whole. The fact is that the published statistics take into account the statements considered under the UDRP - the "Unified Policy for the Resolution of Domain Disputes." This arbitration procedure applies only to domains in gTLD zones (.com,.net,.org, etc.) and in some national zones.^[9]

Cereal and porridge supplier Nordic was denied the right to the domain nordic.ru

The Arbitration Court of Moscow completed the consideration of the case on the claim of Nordic Newtrishen (a former subsidiary of the Finnish food manufacturer Raisio) against the administrator of the nordic.ru domain, registered back in 2004. This was reported on July 7, 2023 in the "Coordination Center for Domains.RU/.RF." Read more here.

Verisign will have the right to manage the.WEB domain.

VeriSign will have the right to manage the.WEB domain. This was announced on May 4, 2023 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC). Read more here.

Financial giant Charles Schwab Corporation accused of trying to take back domain

The US National Arbitration Forum issued a verdict on the complaint filed by Charles Schwab Corporation, a financial and brokerage corporation. This was reported on January 25, 2023 in the "Coordination Center for Domains.RU/.RF" with reference to the resource Domain Name Wire. The panel of arbitrators not only dismissed the complaint, but also found the corporation guilty of attempting to re-acquire the domain name. Read more here.

2022

Morgan Stanley loses msfinancements.com domain dispute

The US National Arbitration Forum issued a verdict in the case initiated by Morgan Stanley. Considered one of the world's richest and most influential companies as of November 2022, this global financial conglomerate has filed a complaint under UDRP's Unified Domain Dispute Resolution Policy on the domain name msfinancements.com. The abbreviation MS is often used to refer to Morgan Stanley, and the French word financements means, of course, "finance." This already indicated a serious chance of victory. This was announced on November 16, 2022 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC). Read more here.

SpaceX loses dispute over domain name

The arbitration World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) ruled on the complaint against the domain name Starlinkmx.com. It was filed under the UDRP Unified Domain Dispute Resolution Policy by the company SpaceX it owns. Elon Musk The reason for the complaint is quite understandable: SpaceX owns the service. This was satellite Internet Starlink announced on October 12, 2022. National Internet Domain Coordination Center (CC)

The proceedings revealed many details. The registrant of the domain name is the Mexican company StarGroup, which operates in the telecommunications and entertainment industries. She owns several well-known brands in Mexico, including Star TV, Star Go, Star Line and Star Group proper. And in 2015, the company also applied for registration in Mexico of the Starlink trademark - and precisely for the provision of services in the field of communications.

Around the same time time , SpaceX first announced plans to create a service. satellite Internet However, the name Starlink was not originally mentioned in these plans: in any case, no evidence was presented to WIPO arbitration. In 2017, SpaceX lawyers took to StarGroup with an offer to sell Star Line and Starlink brands. The negotiations were unsuccessful and turned into legal a conflict that continues to this day. SpaceX lawyers have already managed to ensure that one of the StarGroup brands is declared invalid.

However, in the case of a domain dispute, the success was accompanied by a Mexican company, according to Domain Name Wire. WIPO arbitration found that although the domain itself was Starlinkmx.com registered in 2018, StarGroup filed an application for registration of the corresponding trademark three years earlier - that is, before SpaceX officially began using the Starlink name for its service. Thus, StarGroup, on the one hand, had legal grounds for registering a domain, and on the other, did not act to the detriment of the interests of Elon Musk's company. SpaceX's complaint has been dismissed.

2021: US authorities seize 33 domains of Iranian media

On June 24, 2021, the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC) informed TAdviser that the US Government had taken control of 33 domain names that had previously served for the sites of Iranian and radio stations. When you enter the name of any of these domains in the address bar, a page is displayed with a notice of confiscation of domain names at the request of the Department of Justice. The sites on the domains served to spread disinformation and propaganda of terrorism, the ministry said.

One of the confiscated domains - presstv.com - was used by the state-owned Iranian broadcaster and carried out information broadcasting in English and French. All domains were registered by the Iranian Islamic Broadcasting Union, controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is recognized as a terrorist organization in the United States. Domain name registrars were companies outside the United States, but all domains are registered in the.COM,.NET and.TV zones controlled by the American company Verisign, to which a confiscation order was sent.^[10]

2020: Vertex Pharmaceuticals caught trying to take back domain

The All-Russian Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has considered a complaint about the domain within the framework of the Unified Policy for the Resolution of Domain Disputes UDRP VertexMedical.com. This was announced on November 19, 2020 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC). The complaint was filed by the pharmaceutical company Vertex Pharmaceuticals, which is one of the industry representatives. Read more here.

2018

Absolute 20-year record for complaints: 3,447

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) summed up 2018. Thus, according to the WIPO report, in 2018, the organization considered 3447 complaints under the Unified Domain Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). This is 12% more than the previous year, when 3,074 complaints were considered. Moreover, this result is an absolute record for all 20 years of the existence of the UDRP policy, the Coordination Center of Domains RU/RF (CC) reported on March 20, 2019.

At the same time, the very number of domain names that have become subjects of proceedings under UDRP has not only not grown, but even noticeably decreased. In 2018, it was 5655 against 6370 a year earlier.

It should be understood that the above figures are not a reflection of the full picture. The World Intellectual Property Organization is one of the main, but not the only instance, considering complaints about the unfair use of domain names within the framework of the UDRP policy, the CC emphasized.

Guess caught in dishonest domain game

On April 5, 2018, information appeared that the Forum (formerly the National Arbitration Forum) dismissed the complaint of a well-known clothing manufacturer - Guess, filed against the owner of the domain name G81.com. The company accused the domain owner of cybersquatting on the grounds that Guess has a model of G81 jeans. Moreover, it has existed since 2001, while the domain was acquired by the current owner only in 2004. Read more here.

2017: Record number of complaints: 3,074

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) reported that 2017 was a record year for the number of complaints considered under the UDRP Unified Domain Dispute Resolution Policy. WIPO arbitrators have heard 3,074 complaints - more than ever before. This figure confirms a steady trend: the number of complaints considered by WIPO under the UDRP has been constantly growing since 2013.

The 2017 WIPO report contains quite a bit of curious statistics. For example, it follows from it that Philip Morris is most actively defending its trademarks in the domain space - in a year its lawyers sent 91 complaints to WIPO. This is followed by Michelin (56 complaints) and AB Electrolux (51).

The largest number of complaints received in 2017 from the United States - 920. Russia was also noted in the report: our country showed a record high increase in the number of complaints. Their number increased in 2017 by 537.5% at once. However, in absolute terms, this corresponds to only 51 complaints per year.

It should be recalled that WIPO is not the only authority considering domain disputes under UDRP. The same functions are assigned, for example, to the Forum (formerly the National Arbitration Forum) in the United States. However, according to data provided by the resource Giga.law, the number of domain disputes considered by him also increased significantly. In 2017, the Forum published decisions on 1637 domain disputes, which is 13.6% more than a year earlier.

Events

2024

A new domain zone has appeared in Russia спб.рф

On June 6, 2024, RU-CENTER announced the launch of the sale of domain names in the спб.рф. zone In honor of the opening of the domain zone, RU-CENTER presented the first domains to St. Petersburg and the Roscongress Foundation - город.спб.рф and форум.спб.рф.

This Russian Cyrillic domain zone спб.рф became the second Russian regional zone with spelling in Russian after.moskva. The.rf zone was created in 2010 and became the first domain zone in the world in Cyrillic. The popularity of the.rf zone continues to grow actively due to the current trend for brand Russification, a large number of free names and ease of use for Russian users. In total, more than 777.3 thousand domains are available in the.rf domain zone as of June 2024.

The opening of the Cyrillic domain zone near St. Petersburg is an expected and significant event. The existing Latin zone of the spb.ru region is popular and has over 20 thousand domains as of June 2024. The appearance of a zone in their native language opens up new opportunities for selecting beautiful Internet addresses for local business, "said RU-CENTER CEO and FAITID President, Andrei Kuzmichev.

He added that the cost of domains in the new zone will begin from 189 rubles.

The number of registrations in the national domain of Anguilla has tripled in a year

The number of registrations in the national domain of Anguilla.AI as of mid-April 2024 was 425,060. This was reported on April 15, 2024 in the "Coordination Center for Domains.RU/.RF" with reference to the resource Domain Name Wire.

Anguilla is a British overseas territory in the eastern Caribbean Sea, consisting of several islands with a population of about 15 thousand people. Back in the summer of 2018, there were a little more than 48 thousand registered names in the.AI domain.

But then a sharp rise began, caused by an increase in interest in artificial intelligence technologies: the abbreviation for the English phrase artificial intelligence coincides with the name of the domain zone. In 2020, OpenAI released GPT-3, the most advanced language model at that time. And Anguilla's national domain ended this year with 85,596 registrations.

Since then, the growth rate of the.AI domain zone has steadily increased. In the summer of 2022, 143,737 domain names were registered in the domain, and a year later - already 248,609. In less than the last four months, the number of registrations in the domain zone has increased by 70 thousand, and over the past year it has tripled.

Germany is the leader in the use of domain brands

Germany is a leader in the use of brand domains. This was announced on April 4, 2024 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC).

The Domain Incite resource reported that the number of names registered in brand domains of German companies has reached 10 thousand. Considering that as of April 2024, there are a little more than 21 thousand registrations in brand domains, it becomes obvious that Germany is the world leader in their use.

As for the leader within Germany itself, this position is confidently taken by the financial company Deutsche Vermögensberatung (DVAG). More than 7,500 names are registered in its.DVAG brand domain. In addition to the fact that several corporate sites operate on them, each of the company's financial advisers also has its own domain of the surname name.dvag. Such domains redirect visitors to consultant pages on the main site dvag.de.

The second largest user of domain brands is the automotive company, Audi which is part of Volkswagen the AG concern. More than 1,700 domain names are registered in the.AUDI domain, which serve as sites for various models, as well as dealerships and dealers throughout. to the country In addition, another automaker BMW and the company that owns the Lidl chain of stores are actively developing their brands. retail Schwarz Gruppe

Internet Naming Co announced the timing of the launch of five new shared top-level domains

Internet Naming Co on January 10, 2023 announced the timing of the launch of five common top-level domains:.DIY,.FOOD,.LIFESTYLE,.LIVING, and.VANA. The priority registration period for copyright holders will open in all domain zones on January 24, 2024. Public registration will begin on March 6. It will be preceded by two more special periods. The first of these - the early access period - has long been practiced by many registrars. Throughout the week, those who wish will be able to register the most promising domain names at increased prices, which, however, will decrease every day.

But the second period, lasting only one day. It is called the "loyal customer period," and will immediately precede the early access period. According to the head of the company Shayan Rostam, quoted by the Domain Incite resource, reporting this news, thus the registry wants to celebrate its existing and most loyal clients, giving them the right to be the first to register the desired domain names. True, the registration price will be the same as on the first day of the early access period - the highest possible.

All five domains were acquired by Internet Naming Co in 2023 from Lifestyle Domain Holdings and will be open to everyone. The potential appointment of.FOOD,.LIFESTYLE and.LIVING raises little question. DIY is an abbreviation for the phrase do it yourself, and the domain will obviously be addressed to all hands of the masters. As for.VANA, it is known that the domain will be somehow connected with blockchain technologies, but the registry has not yet disclosed any details.

2023

Negative trends persist in the Chinese domain market

The non-profit organization Chinese Network Information Center (CNNIC), which is the registry of the national domain of the PRC.CN, has published statistics on the results of 2023. He did not make changes in the dynamics of recent times: the Chinese market continues to go through hard times. True, the number of names in the.CN domain zone nevertheless increased and at the end of 2023 reached 20,125,764 against an indicator of 20,101,491 in 2022. But the annual growth of 25 thousand registrations is difficult to consider a success, according to representatives of the Domain Coordination Center, who announced this on May 6, 2024.

Especially in comparison with indicators, for example, of another national domain zone - the German national domain.DE. With a significantly smaller population in Germany, its national domain has grown by about 250 thousand registrations - that is, it has shown tenfold better dynamics.

At the same time, the CNNIC registry monitors information domain names registered by citizens and organizations China not only in the national.CN domain, but in general in all common top-level domains, the Domain Incite resource recalled, reporting this news. And here the picture is very sad. If at the end of 2022 the total number of registered domain names was 34,400,483, then by the end of 2023 it had decreased by almost three million - to 31,595,563. Thus, the complaints of Verisign, which has not been the first quarter, calls the decline in the Chinese market the main reason for the decline in registrations in its.COM domain, obviously have quite serious grounds.

XYZ LLC acquired the rights to manage the shared top-level domain.CEO

XYZ LLC has acquired the rights to manage a common top-level domain.CEO. This was announced on October 11, 2023 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC). The domain was delegated back in December 2013, but in almost ten years it has not gained any noticeable popularity.

However, many experts in the domain industry doubted its prospects from the very beginning. The abbreviation CEO, which has long been "established" in many languages ​ ​ of the world, stands for Chief Executive Officer and is used to refer to the highest officials in the corporate governance hierarchy.

The marketing strategy chosen by the former CEO, PeopleBrowsr, did not help too much to promote the domain. Her first commercial is recognized as a masterpiece of absurdity: in it, registry staff perform something like rap, wearing Donald Trump masks. Next, there were attempts to experiment with animation. All this, combined with the cost of an annual name registration of about $100, led to the fact that in ten years the number of registrations in the domain barely exceeded 3 thousand.

Due to the crisis in Lebanon, the functions of the registry.LB were temporarily taken over by IANA

The address space administration Internet IANA has officially announced that it is temporarily taking over the functions of the national domain registry. Lebanon LB. Previously, the management of the domain zone was carried out by American the university Beirut in and the Lebanese Domain Registry (LBDR). But, as reported by the Domain Incite resource, their cooperation was interrupted back in 2020. This was announced on July 17, 2023. National Internet Domain Coordination Center (CC) More. here

The national domain of the United Arab Emirates has reached the mark of 300 thousand registrations

The state telecommunications regulator of the United Arab Emirates Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA) shared the results of the country's national domain.AE in 2022. The year was very successful for the domain zone: it added 46 thousand registrations, demonstrating a growth rate of 20%. And already in the first quarter of 2023, the number of registered names in the.AE domain reached 300 thousand. This was announced by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC) on May 25, 2023.

Domain Incite, reporting this news, notes that this is a very good indicator for a country in which about 9.2 million people live. For comparison: the number of registrations in the national domain of Israel (population - approximately 9.3 million people).IL is about 284 thousand, and in the national domain of Belarus (population - approximately 9.2 million people).BY - about 160 thousand. However, there are examples of another property: for example, in the national domains of Hungary. HU and Austria. AT (the population of both countries is also comparable to the population of the UAE), about 860,000 and more than 1.5 million domain names are registered, respectively. It should also be understood that a significant proportion of people living in the United Arab Emigrants are visiting workers who do not have the citizenship of the country. On the other hand, the latter circumstance cannot be considered an obstacle: registration in the.AE domain is open.

Over the year, 740,000 second-level names are registered in the Australian national domain

The auDA registry, which manages the Australian national domain.AU, summed up an important period for itself. Six days before the end of March 2022, second-level domain names (of the species example.au were allowed to be registered in the Australian national domain; previously, it was possible only to register third-level domains - of the type example.com.au). In just six March days of 2022, almost 80,000 second-level domain names were registered in the domain. This was announced on May 10, 2023 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC).

However, then the pace dropped noticeably: by the end of the second quarter, only 170 thousand such domains were registered in the.AU domain zone. But in the future, the rate of registration revived again: 550 thousand registrations in the third quarter and 716 thousand by the end of the fourth. The Domain Name Wire resource, reporting this news, notes that until October 2022, the registrants of the corresponding third-level names had the preemptive right to register second-level names in the.AU domain. Then any domain names became available for registration to everyone.

The first quarter of 2023, Australia's national domain finished with 740,000 second-tier domain names. The total number of registrations in the domain zone was 4.2 million.

2022

753,412 names were registered in the French national domain

The organisation Afnic, which runs France's national.FR domain, has published a number of statistics relating to the progress of the domain zone in 2022. Symbolically important for the domain was the achievement in December 2022 of the milestone of 4 million registrations. At the same time, 753,412 new names were registered in the French national domain throughout the year. This figure remains consistently high, not falling below 600 thousand new registrations since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. This was announced on April 12, 2023 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC).

True, the growth of the domain zone in 2022 amounted to 2.9%, having noticeably decreased compared to 2021 (then it reached 5.9%). Nevertheless, the latest growth indicators still surpass both the results of the French domain market as a whole (growth of 1.3%) and the average annual growth of European national domains (2%). The.FR domain is still the leader in the French domain market, raising its market share to 39.4%. The growth of the market share of the national domain of France in 2022 amounted to 0.6%, while the share of the.COM domain over the same period decreased in the country by 0.5%.

Cloudflare became the technical operator of the.gov domain

The technical operator of the domain zone was the company that Cloudflare signed the corresponding contract CISA with $7.2 million in mid-December 2022^[11]This was announced on January 18, 2023. National Internet Domain Coordination Center (CC) More. here

Government agencies will use only Russian domain zones

On November 2, 2022, a decree of the Government of Russia was published, according to which, from December 1, 2022, all e-mail addresses that are used by state and local authorities must be created using domain names and network addresses in the Russian national domain zone. The decision was made to ensure the information security of the work of government agencies. The decree was signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

The Russian national domain zone includes:

• the top-level domain of.RU;
• The top-level domain of the RF
• Top-level domain .SU
• other top-level domains managed by Russian domain name registries accredited by international organizations.

Andrei Vorobyov, Director of the Coordination Center for.RU/.RF Domains, noted that almost all federal authorities have corporate mail on their domains, usually registered in the.RU domain. At the same time, regional authorities and municipalities more often use public postal services, so they will primarily be affected by the decree that comes into force on December 1.

Each administration has a site on its own domain, but IT divisions of municipalities do not always create corporate postal addresses, so municipal employees use public services for official purposes. And often these are foreign services, primarily on domains in the.COM zone, which, although considered international, is completely controlled by American organizations. In this regard, the use of mail in services registered in the.COM domain cannot be considered secure. The Government decree is aimed at ensuring that government agencies use exclusively Russian postal services, - said Andrei Vorobyov.

The number of domain names registered in the world reached 351.5 million in the first half of the year

VeriSign has published another issue of its Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB) quarterly report on the state of the domain market. This was announced on September 21, 2022 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC). The report summarizes Q2 and the first half of 2022. According to his data, as of June 30, 351.5 million domain names were registered in the world. This is 1 million or 0.3% more than in the first quarter. The growth compared to the second quarter of 2021 was 10.4 million, which corresponds to 3%.

At the same time, for the.COM and.NET domain zones managed by Verisign itself, the quarter was not very successful. The total number of registrations in these two domains decreased by 0.4 million (0.2%) compared to the first quarter.

Compared to the same period in 2021, the total number of registrations in these two domain zones still significantly increased - by 3.7 million or 2.2%. By the end of the first half of 2022, the number of names registered in the.COM domain is estimated at 161.1 million, in the.NET domain - at 13.2 million.

National domain zones had 134.1 million names as of June 30 - 0.7 million or 0.5% more than in the first quarter. The largest national domain is still the PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA.CN domain, the number of registrations in which is estimated at 20.6 million. The number of names in the DNIB national domain RUSSIAN FEDERATION .RU is estimated at 5.7 million. This makes Russian the domain the fifth highest number of registrations among national domain zones and the eighth highest number of all common top-level domains.

The number of names in the new common top-level domains reached 27 million by the end of the first half of the year - an increase of 2.6% compared to the first quarter, compared to the same period in 2021 - 18.1% at once. The leader in this category is the.XYZ domain with 4.2 million registrations, which also allows it to take 10th place in the list of the largest domain zones.

Announced the creation of a unified service for protecting brands in domain zones

On September 1, 2022, the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Network Internet (CC) announced the creation of the service. NameBlock AS It is designed to help copyright holders protect the names of their trade brands in the domain space. More. here

The European Union is preparing additional protection for geographical names in national domains

The European Commission, the highest executive body of the European Union, has prepared a draft document designed to provide additional protection against cyber squatting in the national domains of EU member states. This was announced on July 14, 2022 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC). We are talking about the protection of geographical names of social and cultural importance. As of July 2022, the European Union already has protective measures against geographical names related to the production of agricultural products. And it is almost impossible for cybersquatters to register domain names related, for example, to champagne wines, Parma ham or Gorgonzola cheese.

The updated rules will extend this practice to geographical names related to industrial and craft industries and goods of folk crafts. This means that, for example, Murano glass, Zolingen steel, Yablonets jewelry - and geographical names associated with them and many other goods - will be protected. In addition, the draft document also provides for the creation of a special arbitration to resolve domain disputes concerning precisely geographical names in the national domains of the countries of the European Union.

The number of domain names registered as of the end of March is estimated at 350.5 million

VeriSign has published its quarterly report, Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB). The next issue sums up the results of the first quarter of 2022. The number of domain names registered in all shared top-level domains as of March 31, 2021 is estimated at 350.5 million. This was announced on July 4, 2022 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC).

The leading position is, of course, the Verisign-managed.COM domain. It and another Verisign-controlled.NET domain account for a total of almost half of all names registered in the world - 174.4 million (161.3 in.COM and 13.4 in.NET). In the first quarter, two of these domain zones "grew" by 0.7% compared to the 4th quarter of 2021, in absolute terms, the increase was 1.2 million domain names. And the number of new registrations in.COM and.NET domains is estimated at 6.7 million.

National domains showed higher growth rates. They added 6 million names in the quarter, matching an increase of 4.7% from the previous quarter. The top three here are the national domains of China.CN, Germany.DE and Great Britain.UK - 20.6 million, 17.2 million and 11.1 million domain names, respectively. The Russian national domain is on the 5th line with 5.7 million registrations. In total, 133.4 million names were registered in national domains by the end of March 2022 - while it should be remembered that the DNIB no longer includes the indicators of the "conditionally national" Tokelau.TK domain in the analysis.

Domain name selection service launched at auction in Belarus

The company HostFly.by on March 21, 2022 launched a service that significantly simplifies the choice and purchase of domain names as part of a mandatory auction. Previously acquired domains that have not been extended on time are put up for auction in Belarus. Read more here.

ICANN refused to disable Russian domain names

The President and CEO of the Internet Naming and Numbering Corporation () ICANN rejected Ukraine a request to disable the root servers domain name system that serves the domain zone, .ru revoke SSL certificates and allocated names. This became known on March 14, 2022. More. here

Domain SBR.org auctioned off for $5,705

trade The next auction of domain names, the registration of which was not extended by the previous owners, has ended at the DropCatch site. The domain name of the SBR.org deserves attention, for which the winner of the auction paid 5,705. dollars This was announced on February 28, 2022. National Internet Domain Coordination Center (CC) This is the second result for DropCatch auctions with three-letter domain names in the.ORG zone in the last 5 years, only buying a WCN.org domain for $7,559 in 2019 was more expensive.

Until recently, the SBR.org domain was used for the Small Business Revolution documentary television series site, which is funded by major technology company Deluxe. The series encourages small business development in small American cities and tells success stories of local businessmen. 6 seasons of this TV show have already been released, it has a good press and audience and was even nominated for the Emmy Television Award. The buyer of the domain was Deluxe - the one that owned the domain before and, obviously, simply forgot to extend it, according to the Domain Gang resource. Probably, $5,705 is not a very significant amount for a large company, however, it could also find a much more reasonable use if it occurred to at least someone to extend the registration of the domain name in time^[12]

2021

The pan-European domain has grown by the end of the year

On February 7, 2022, information appeared that the EURid registry, which manages the combined national domain of the European Union countries, summed up the results of the 4th quarter of 2021 and the entire last year as a whole. The year was completed in the plus: in the domain zones .EU,.EI and. ΕΥ as of December 31, a total of 3,713,804 names were registered. This is an increase compared to both the 3rd quarter (3,705,728) and the results of the previous year (3,684,984).

For the.EU domain, which has lost many tens of thousands of British registrant names as a result Great Britain of leaving the EU, this is certainly a positive result. However, there is no reason for excessive optimism either. As noted by the Domain Incite resource, success almost single-handedly ensured, Portugal which showed an incredible increase in the number of domain names registered in the.EU zone throughout the year - 23.4%. Over the year, the number of Portuguese registrant domains in the overall the European national domain increased by 55,388 and reached 161,283. This success provided significant discounts that were provided throughout the year by Portuguese registrar companies. However, many of the names registered on these terms are acquired as a rule without any specific purpose, and their registration is not further renewed.

Of other trends, there is a fairly noticeable increase in domain registrations by EU citizens living outside the European Union. If at the end of the 3rd quarter they registered 16,676 domain names, then by the end of the year this number rose to 19,591.^[13]

The total number of domain names registered in the world in September decreased to 364.6 million

According to Verisign's Q3 2021 Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB), the total number of domain names registered in the world has declined. So, as of September 30, the number of domain names amounted to 364.6 million. This is 2.7 million, or 0.7%, less than three months earlier. The decrease compared to the same period in 2020 turned out to be even more noticeable - 6.1 million, or 1.6%, reported on December 13, 2021 in the Coordination Center of Domains.RU/.RF with reference to the Online Domain resource.

At the same time, Verisign-managed common top-level domains.COM and.NET, on the contrary, showed growth. The combined growth of registered names in these two domain zones was 0.9% compared to the previous quarter and 5.1% compared to 2020. In absolute terms, this is 1.5 and 8.3 million domains, respectively. The total number of registered names in.COM and.NET reached 172.1 million by the end of Q3.

The growth was also shown by new common top-level domains. They grew by 0.6 million registrations or 2.7% compared to last year and reached the level of 23.5 million registrations in total. Thus, the national domains turned out to be "responsible" for the decline. The number of names registered in them decreased by 4.8 million or 3% compared to the 2nd quarter. Compared to the same period in 2020, the decline was 7.7 million registrations or 4.8%. As of September 30, 2021, the DNIB estimates the total number of names registered in national domains at 152.9 million.

The total number of domain names registered in the world for June is 367.3 million

VeriSign presented its Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB) for the second quarter of 2021. In the company-managed domain zones.COM and.NET, things are, as usual, extremely safe. The total number of domain names registered in them reached 170.6 million as of June 30. The growth compared to the first quarter was 1.5%, which in absolute figures is 2.6 million registrations, the Coordination Center of Domains.RU/.RF (CC) reported on September 3, 2021.

The total number of domain names registered in the world also increased - by 3.8 million or 1% compared to the first quarter and now stands at 367.3 million. However, this is 2.8 million fewer names than in the second quarter of 2020. One of the "culprits" of the decline can be considered the "conditionally national" domain of Tokelau.TK. It recorded a serious decrease in indicators. As a result, national domains, while adding 1.2 million registrations compared to the first quarter, are 2.4 million behind last year's figure. At the same time, if we exclude the.TK indicators from the statistics of national domains (which is quite logical), then compared to last year they showed even a slight increase - in 0.3%, the CC noted.

However, the main reason for the overall decrease in the number of registrations compared to last year is the new common top-level domains. They lost 22.9 million names in a year, a 27.8% decline, according to VeriSign data. This is primarily due to the fact that many new domain zones have ended periods of more than generous discounts on registration and extension of names.

Start priority registration of names in the.ZUERICH domain

On August 30, 2021, the priority registration period in the top-level common domain was opened. ZUERICH. This was announced on September 1, 2021 by the Coordination Center for Domains.RU/.RF (CC). Until the end of September, copyright holders will be able to register names corresponding to their trademarks and trademarks in the domain zone as a priority. Then, until November 22, the so-called limited registration period will last, after which domains in the.ZUERICH zone will become available to everyone - provided that the registrant lives in the city or canton of Zurich or is a legal entity registered on their territory.

As representatives of the CC noted,.ZUERICH can be considered the newest of the "geographical" domains, although the authorities of the canton of Zurich came up with the idea of ​ ​ creating it back in 2011. But Zurich was unlucky with the requirements of the DNS system: the language of the canton is German, and in German his name is written as Zürich - that is, with a diacritic above the letter u. Thus, domain registration in the original spelling was not possible. Zurich refused the idea of ​ ​ obtaining an internationalized domain and, after prolonged deliberation, settled on the transliteration of ZUERICH.

However, the solution of numerous technical and bureaucratic issues related to the management of the domain zone was even more delayed. According to the Domain Incite resource, the.ZUERICH domain was included in the DNS root zone back in late 2014. In 2017, a trial registration was even opened there, but then the case stalled again.

As of August 30, only 25 active names were registered in the domain zone, but only one of them led to a site not controlled by the domain registry. It is curious that it was the website of clinic of treatment of dependences. I would like to believe that now the affairs of the domain. ZUERICH will finally go more vigorously, - noted in the Coordination Center of Domains .RU/.RF

The number of registrations in the national domain of Germany has reached 17 million

The results of their work were shared by two registrars of large national domains at once, the Coordination Center of Domains.RU/.RF reported on July 21, 2021 with reference to Domain Name Wire.

The non-profit organization DENIC, which manages the German national domain.DE, reported on the achievement of the next milestone: the number of names registered in the domain zone reached 17 million. Jubilee name melba-stoffkreation.de. was registered on July 13, Melanie Baumgardt, owner of a bespoke souvenir and gift workshop, became its registrar. The previous milestone of 16 million registrations was achieved by the German national domain in 2015.

At the same time, the non-profit organization Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) reported on the results of the 1st quarter of this year in the national domain of Canada.C.A. As of the end of March, 3,106,723 names were registered in the domain. The average growth rate of the domain zone in the first three months of 2021 was about 1% - against 0.35% for the same period in 2020. The CIRA report also reported that 32% of all registered domain names are active, with another 17% being used for forwarding. If we talk about content management systems, then more than half of the sites operating on domains in the.CA zone use WordPress.

2020

Group-IB: Domain Theft Scheme in Russia

On November 19, 2020, a company Group-IB specializing in cyber security announced a scheme that hackers are using to steal legal domains in. Russia Subsequently, these domains are used for. phishing attacks

The victims are the owners of those domain names that, although paid and not blocked by the registrar, are not tied to the hosting account. This happens in two cases: the domain is forgotten or recently bought out. Attackers maintain a database of such domains and place their content on Internet provider servers using someone else's domain. The entire "interception" procedure takes from 30 minutes to several hours, Group-IB said in a statement.

After these manipulations, hijackers can post their content on the seized site to use the resource for financial fraud - theft of money and bank card data, sending letters with a malicious investment or to infect visitors to the compromised site with banking Trojans, spyware, ransomware viruses (watering hole attacks).

For example, the медкнижка-тверь.рф website, which appeared in early 2020 to advertise medical services, since August contained only a fraudulent announcement about a non-existent share from a large Russian bank. At the end of the survey, the Russians were required to enter bank card details, including a CVV code, allegedly to transfer money.

The danger of this scheme is that it allows someone else's content to be placed on the domain without the owner's knowledge and without any notification from the hosting provider, "explained Alexander Kalinin, head of CERT-GIB.

Experts checked about 3.2 million domains from the largest Russian and international hosting providers and allocated among them about 30,500 names that are at risk - those that attackers can easily "hijack."^[14]

The Ministry of Digital Development decided to link the registration of sites to public services

On October 26, 2020, it became known about the decision of the Ministry of Digital Development of the Russian Federation to introduce the identification of site administrators through public services. This measure, according to the department, will help fight fraudsters.

As Kommersant writes with reference to the documents of the Ministry of Digital Development, it is proposed to bring to the discussion of the presidium of the government commission on digital development the possibility of identifying domain administrators in the zones.ru and.rf through the Unified Identification and Authentication System (ESIA; used in public services). We are talking about connecting domain registrars accredited in the Coordination Center of the national domain of the Internet (CC) to the ESIA.

As conceived by the ministry, at the initial stage, identification through public services will be voluntary. The Ministry of Digital Development only confirmed to the newspaper that they support the connection of domain name registrars to the ESIA.

According to Andrei Vorobyov, director of the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet, the initiative will help simplify the procedure for registering domain names, as well as facilitate the work of law enforcement agencies, in particular, to combat fraudsters.

Denis Rotanov, General Director of 101 Domain, also believes that mandatory registration through public services will help fight fraud. Law enforcement officers will be able to receive data on administrators in two clicks, and not within 30 days on request, Qrator Labs technical director Artem Gavrichenkov told the publication.

According to the head of the Institute for Internet Research Karen Ghazaryan, law enforcement agencies by the end of October 2020 receive information about domain administrators without any problems. However, the project will free companies from the need to provide data on request and store them, he is sure.^[15]

A domain with the name of the Russian vaccine against COVID-19 was registered in China in 2019

On October 19, 2020, it became known that the SputnikV.com domain was registered on July 30, 2019. This domain is very similar to the SputnikVaccine.com domain dedicated to the Sputnik V vaccine (Sputnik V in English), which was created by the Russian National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology named after Gamaleya created a vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19. The development is registered by the Ministry of Health and takes place in October 2020, the third stage of clinical trials.

The domain name of the SputnikV.com was registered in China almost six months before the first information about the Chinese coronavirus appeared and a year before the first reports of the Russian vaccine, according to the Domain Gang resource. Given the popularity of various conspiracy theories in connection with the pandemic, the day is probably not far off, when this coincidence will serve as food for another speculation. The fact that the Chinese and Russians not only conspired in advance to inflict a terrible virus on the world, but also came up with a vaccine and even its name, but kept all this secret until the right moment^[16].

Whois will become the authenticity of works of art

The National Patent Office USA issued a patent number 10,805,263 to UKCI Holdings Limited, which is the registrar of the common top-level domain.ART. The registry has patented a way to use the Whois service as a means of confirming the authenticity of art objects. This was announced on October 14, 2020. National Internet Domain Coordination Center (CC) Whois records are used to store basic data information about registrants and domain name registrars. However, specialists from UKCI Holdings Limited suggested using additional record fields to store identification information works of art. The step is quite understandable, given that the.ART domain is, by definition, addressed primarily to artists, art dealers and collectors.

Thus, if a domain in the.ART zone is registered for a site of specific works of art, its Whois entry will serve as a proof of provenance. This concept is key for the art business, it means the history of the origin of the subject of art and the possession of it. Provence serves as a decisive factor in determining the value of works of art. Representatives of the registry note that the same concept can be used not only for works of art, but also for antiques, retro collectible cars, etc.

Dutch national domain reaches 6 million registrations

The non-profit organization SIDN, which is the registrar of the national domain of the Netherlands.NL, reported on the achievement: the number of registered names in the domain zone reached 6 million. This was announced on July 8, 2020 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC). According to SIDN, the "anniversary" was the domain name of the deyogiclub.nl, registered on June 18, 2020. Domain Incite, reporting this news, notes that since the beginning of 2020, the.NL domain has added about 100 thousand registrations, with 80 thousand of them in the second quarter.

during the coronavirus crisis in recent months, the increase in the number of registrations turned out to be so significant that we reached the milestone of 6 million names in the.NL domain much earlier than expected, based on forecasts based on normal growth rates.

The.Amazon domain is included in the DNS root zone

On June 4, 2020, the Coordination Center for the National Internet Domain (CC) reported that the root DNS zone was replenished with three common top-level domains. This domain is.AMAZON, as well as domains. アマゾン (.xn--cckwcxetd) and. 亚马逊 (.xn--jlq480n2rg), which are internationalized versions of AMAZON in Japanese and Chinese. All of them are brand domains, and registration of domain names in them can only be carried out by Amazon.

It should be assumed that this event finally puts an end to a conflict that has dragged on for as long as 7 years. Amazon originally intended to use.AMAZON and its internationalized versions as brand domains. ICANN There were no formal reasons for refusal from the outside: as it turned out, none of the South American countries has either a settlement or an administrative-territorial unit with the name Amazon. But the countries of the so-called Amazon Pact (Organization of the Agreement on Cooperation in the Amazon River Basin - ACTO) Bolivia-,,, Brazil Venezuela Guyana,,, Colombia Peru Suriname and sharply opposed the delegation of domains. Ecuador

The long-term negotiations, mediated by ICANN President Göran Marby himself in 2019, did not lead to any results. Amazon was ready to consider various compromises, but refused to jointly manage domain zones, which the ACTO countries insisted on. Internal contradictions between the ACTO participating countries also played a role, due to which negotiations at the final stage were endlessly postponed and postponed. As a result, ICANN's patience ran out and the corporation announced it had signed a contract with Amazon. Just on the eve of the delegation of domains, on May 21, the ACTO countries made their last attempt to influence the situation: the Secretary General of the organization, Alexandra Moreira, sent a letter to ICANN in which she expressed her readiness to finally resume negotiations from the moment at which they were interrupted. However, the moment was already missed.

However, it cannot be said that the ACTO states were completely defeated. According to the terms of the contract, Amazon and ICANN, each of the countries included in ACTO will receive control of its own domain in the.Amazon zone. In addition, Amazon will reserve for them up to 1,500 domains whose names are associated with the cultural heritage of these countries.

South Sudan announces launch of its national domain

The National Communications Administration of South Sudan announced that from June 1, 2020, Goad will open registration in the country's national domain. This was announced on May 28, 2020 by Coordination Center National Internet Domain. South Sudan is the youngest independent state for May 2020: it has existed since 2011. The International Organization for Standardization ISO assigned the state the two-letter code SS (from the English name of the country South Sudan). Accordingly, this was the national domain of the state.

This decision caused a heated debate. Many critics have not unreasonably pointed out that the abbreviation SS is associated primarily with the Nazi stormtroopers Schutzstaffe. Concerns have also been raised that the.SS domain may prove highly attractive to those who espouse neo-Nazi views. One way or another, ICANN Corporation did not have the right to refuse to delegate.SS as a national domain to South Sudan.

Whether these concerns will be justified will become clear in the near future. Starting June 1, the.SS domain begins the priority registration period, when copyright holders will be able to register names corresponding to their protected trademarks and trademarks. It will last until July 15, then from July 17 the premium registration period starts.

Public registration in.SS opens on Sept. So far, you can only register third-level domain names:.com.ss,.net.ss,.biz.ss,.org.ss,.gov.ss,.edu.ss,.sch.ss and.me.ss. And only domains of the types.com.ss,.net.ss and.biz.ss are publicly available, registration of all other domain names will require additional confirmation of the registrant's belonging to a particular category. As for the second-level domains themselves, the registry has announced that it is also considering registering them, but in the uncertain "foreseeable future."

Reg.ru has opened the ability to register domains in different languages ​ ​ with Unicode characters

April 21, 2020 hosting-provider and the domain registrar REG.RU opened the registration of internationalized domain names (IDN) with Unicode - symbols of non-Latin alphabets. More. here

2019

.ORG domain generated about $95 million in revenue for the year

The Public Interest Registry (PIR), which manages the.ORG common top-level domain, has released its 2019 report. This was announced on June 23, 2020 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC). The document states a slight decrease in the number of names registered in the domain zone: during the year it decreased from 10.3 to 10.1 million. The.ORG domain generated nearly $95 million in revenue in 2019, and the PIR registry's operating profit was $60 million. Read more here.

In the third quarter, 5.1 million domain names were registered

VeriSign presented its Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB) for the third quarter of 2019. According to him, by the end of September, 359.8 million domain names were registered in the world, the Coordination Center of Domains.RU/.RF (CC) reported on December 23, 2019. The increase compared to the previous quarter was 5.1 million names.

However, Domain Incite, commenting on this data, notes that there are not too many reasons for joy in reality. The fact is that the maximum growth - 2.6 million registrations at once - was demonstrated by the "conditionally national" Tokelau domain.TK. It is well known that the company Freenom (OpenTLD), which manages it, distributes domain names for free and does not delete them after the deadline for registration. Thus, both the statistics of.TK and the value of its growth look rather dubious.

Another "locomotive" of growth was the common top-level domain.ICU, demonstrating impressive success in the Chinese market. Between July and September, the domain added more than a million registrations. But it is worth noting that names in the.ICU domain are offered at extremely low prices, during constant discounts and promotions they can be registered for 1-2. dollar As a rule, most names registered in this way are not used in any way, and their registration is not subsequently renewed.

As a result, the only real source of growth remains the VeriSign-managed.COM domain, the CC emphasized. Throughout Q3, it grew by 1.5 million registrations and reached 144 million registered names.

Taken together, the indicators of the three listed domains just give the same growth of 5.1 million. Thus, all other common top-level domains - and their number exceeds 1500 - cannot boast of any noticeable success in the third quarter.

Steve Jobs posthumously returned his domain

On December 12, 2019, the Coordination Center for Domains.RU/.RF (CC) announced that the national arbitration forum had considered and satisfied the complaint filed by Steve Jobs Archive, a limited liability company. The subject of the proceedings was a domain name SteveJobs.com. According to the resource Domain Name Wire, it was registered back in 1999 by a resident of South Korea. Read more here.

14 years in prison for trying to take away a domain at gunpoint

On December 10, 2019, Rossi Lorathio Adams was sentenced to 14 years in prison for trying to take away a domain under threat of physical violence. Read more here.

The registry that manages the.ORG domain was sold to an investment company

On November 14, 2019, it became known that the international professional organization Internet Society (ISOC) and the investment company Ethos Capital Investors announced the conclusion of a deal in which the Public Interest Registry (PIR), associated with ISOC and managing the.ORG domain, will be acquired by Ethos Capital Investors. Now PIR intends to be certified to obtain B Corporation status, and therefore ceases to be a non-profit organization and becomes a commercial company. Read more here.

More than 2 million names registered in.US

As of July 2019, more than 2 million names are registered in the US national domain.US. At the same time, a significant majority of them belong to state organizations and institutions. Read more here.

More than 41 thousand second-level names registered in a week in the.UK domain

Since July 1, 2019 Great Britain , public registration of any second-level domain names has started in the national domain.UK, the Coordination center of domains.RU/.РФ

As you know, for a long time in Britain it was possible to register only third-level domains. In 2014, the Nominet registry, which manages the national domain, decided to change the situation and open the possibility of registering second-level domains. At the same time, a five-year transition period was approved. During this period, owners of third-level domain names received the priority right to register similar second-level names. For example, only the registrant who owns the domain rights could register a domain domainname.uk domainname.org.uk or domainname.co.uk.

This transition period ended on June 24, and from July 1, all names left unclaimed by the owners of similar third-level domains became available for registration to everyone. According to Domain Name Wire, citing Nominet statistics, more than 41,000 second-level names were registered in the first week of public registration in the.UK domain. Short, in particular, single-letter domains were especially popular.

The "champion" was the z.uk domain, which was claimed by 80 registrants at once. Other extremely popular names include law.uk, k.uk and wedding.uk. In total, more than 1.8 million domain names received "open access." And the total number of second-level names in the British domain.UK is about 3.7 million as of July 2019.

The number of names in the.LU domain has exceeded 100 thousand

On June 21, 2019, the national domain Luxembourg.LU crossed the milestone of 100 thousand registrations. This was stated by the organization RESTENA Foundation, which manages this domain. As of the end of June, there were 100056 registered names in the domain zone. This indicator can be considered very modest, but only if you do not take into account the population of Luxembourg. It is about 600 thousand people, and in comparison with this figure, the figure of 100 thousand names looks very impressive, according to. "Coordination Center for Domains.RU/.РФ" Read more. here

21.24 million domain names in the.CN zone

In early July 2019, the CNNIC registry, which manages the national domain of the PRC.CN, published data on the number of registered names in the domain zone. Starting in February 2017, CNNIC, for unknown reasons, stopped publishing monthly reports on the number of registrations in the domain on its website. For this reason, estimates of the number of registered names in.CN by various sources are quite approximate, the Coordination Center of Domains.RU/.RF reported on July 8, 2019.

Thus, the Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief report indicated that at the end of 2018, 22.7 million names were registered in the.CN domain. The figure now given by CNNIC is significantly less: as it turns out, by the end of the previous year, 21.24 million domain names were registered in the domain. This formally pushes.CN to second place in the list of the largest national domains, since there are 21.5 million registrations in the Tokelau.TK domain (according to the same report by Domain Name Industry Brief). However, do not forget that the.TK domain can only be classified as national with a great stretch. Names in it are registered free of charge and are not deleted, even if their registration period is not extended.

If we talk about "real" national domains, then.CN still holds a comfortable lead, confidently ahead of the German domain in second place. DE (16.2 million registered names). Also, Domain Incite, referring to CNNIC, reports that in the internationalized national domain of the PRC. 中国 by the end of 2018, 1.72 million domain names were registered.^[17]

140 million.COM domain names

On May 27, 2019, VeriSign announced that the number of registered domain names in the.COM shared top-level domain it manages for the first time reached 140 million. As of May 22, there were 140 016 726 names in the.COM zone file. At the same time, taking into account the names registered, but not yet included in the file, their total number was in the 141 857 360 domain.

This is another "round" digit for the popular common top-level domain. The previous one - 130 million - was achieved in November 2017. Thus, the domain took about a year and a half to grow by 10 million names. At the same time, not all domains managed by Verisign are just as rosy. The number of registered names in the.NET domain continues to decline. As of the end of last week, there were 13,441,748 names in the zone file. Taking into account the names not yet included in the file, their total number reaches 13,668,548. So far, this allows the company to habitually report that there are "about 14 million" names in the domain. However, if the downward trend continues, the possibility of such "rounding" will be lost in the closest future^[18].

The UK refused to return the Chagos archipelago, and with it the.IO domain

On May 15, 2019, it became known that UK government it refused to recognize the decision of the International Court of Justice UN in relation to the Chagos archipelago. As previously reported, this archipelago has the status The British Indian of an ocean territory (British Indian Ocean Territory - BIOT), and the corporation ICANN has delegated the.IO national domain to it. In May 2019, it is very popular with the creators of technology startups and developers, the software number of names registered in it is estimated at about 270 thousand (in slang programmers , the abbreviation IO means input/output).

However, Mauritius insists on the return of the archipelago under its sovereignty on the grounds that Great Britain arbitrarily proclaimed the islands as its territory and forcibly evicted all indigenous people from there in order to create a military base. The UN International Court of Justice found Mauritius's arguments convincing and called on the UK to abandon the management of the islands of the archipelago. A Tory government led by Theresa May has no intention of enforcing the decision. But he was backed by the opposition Labour Party, Domain Incite reports. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said his party respected the ICJ's decision and would do anything to implement it in full, including returning Indigenous families to the islands. Thus, the further fate of the.IO domain becomes a political issue and turns out to be directly dependent on whether the conservatives will be able to stay in power in the UK^[19].

.IO domain may disappear

On February 27, 2019, it became known that the International Court UN of Justice decided on the fate of the Chagos archipelago. By an overwhelming majority (13 to 1), the court decided that Great Britain it should immediately stop managing the islands of the archipelago. This event, as well as the response decision of the UK, may affect the further fate of the.IO domain, they believe in. "National Internet Domain Coordination Center

As you know, the Chagos archipelago is located about half the way from Africa to Indonesia and can be geographically assigned to islands belonging to Mauritius. But just before Mauritius gained independence in 1968, Britain declared Chagos a British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). This was done in order to allow allies from the United States to create a military base on the largest of the islands of the archipelago - Diego Garcia. For several years, the entire indigenous population of the islands was forcibly resettled in Mauritius or the Seychelles, and as of February 2019, the population of the archipelago is almost exclusively British and American military.

However, Mauritius all this time did not stop the struggle to return its sovereignty over the archipelago. The final of this long-term struggle was the decision of the International Court of Justice.

Over the years, the abbreviation BIOT has been officially recognized by the International Organization for Standardization ISO, and ICANN Corporation on this basis has delegated the.IO national domain to the territory. According to the "Coordination Center for RU/RF Domains," it is quite popular with software developers and technological startups. So, according to Domain Incite, as of February 27, over 270 thousand names were registered in the domain zone.

The British authorities have not yet commented on the decision of the International Court of Justice. But even if the UK is ready to accept it, the fate of the.IO domain still remains vague, according to representatives of the administrator of the national top-level domains .RU and .RF.

On the one hand, the national domain obviously cannot exist if the country (in this case, the administrative territory) to which it is delegated ceases to exist. But on the other hand, there are no formal rules on this matter. The ICANN organization to support national ccNSO domains is only developing an official removal policy for such cases. There are several historical precedents. So, at one time, the Netherlands Antilles (at that time - autonomy within the Netherlands) was delegated the.AN domain. But in 2010, autonomy collapsed, and 5 years later the domain was removed from the root zone. At DNS the same time, there are reverse examples. As you know, the Soviet Union has not existed for a long time, but the domain .SU continues to exist and is quite popular, the Coordination Center noted.

2018

The number of domains in the.COM zone has reached 139 million

Verisign has published its next report Domain Name Industry Brief, the "National Internet Domain Coordination Center" reported on April 3, 2019. The document serves as one of the main sources of information on the state of affairs in the domain industry and sums up the results of 2018.

As the report suggests, the Verisign-managed.COM shared top-level domain ended the year with 139 million registered names. Annual growth was 7.1 million names. For comparison: the total growth in all new common top-level domains (ngTLDs) for 2018 reached 3.2 million names. Thus, for each new registered name in all new domains, there are 2.2 names in the.COM domain.

In turn, the new domains, according to Verisign, ended 2018 with 23.8 million registered names, and their total market share was 6.8% versus 6.2% a year earlier.

However,.COM managed to get ahead of national domains (ccTLDs). Thus, the total growth in them over the year reached 8.2 million names, while the total number of registered domain names at the end of 2018 amounted to 154.3 million.

True, these indicators also include data on the Tokelau.TK domain, which is national only on a formal basis, the company specified. Domains in this zone are registered free of charge and indefinitely (which, of course, is actively used by registrants pursuing illegal goals). According to approximate estimates, about 21.5 million names are registered in the.TK domain as of April 2019.^[20]

The number of domains in the world is 348 million; record low 3.7% growth

According to the CENTR association, 348 million domain names were registered in the world at the end of 2018. Thus, the growth of the domain market during 2018 turned out to be a record low and amounted to only 3.7%, according to the message of the "Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet" dated March 14, 2019. According to the association's experts, the downward trend in growth has remained for several years in a row, and no signs of its overcoming are yet in sight.

The market leader remains the common top-level domain.COM. According to CENTR, its market share was recorded at about 72%. At the same time, the domain showed slight growth, while other "old" common top-level domains showed a decrease in the number of registered names - most likely due to competition from new domains.

As for the national domains of European countries, their growth rates last year were also record low - only 2%. Nevertheless, national domains feel quite confident: CENTR statistics indicate that 54% of all registrations in European countries are accounted for by national European domains.^[21]

The number of domains in the.UZ zone has exceeded 60 thousand.

On June 12, 2018, the Unified Integrator for the Creation and Support of State Information Systems Uzinfocom, acting as the administrator of the national domain of the Republic of Uzbekistan, announced in its blog that the number of registered names in the domain zone has reached 60 thousand, of which 13 365 are new domains. Another 935 domains are awaiting registration.

At the beginning of 2018, the number of registered names in the.UZ zone was 51.8 thousand. Thus, for six months the increase was more than 15%. At the same time, 5349 domains were deleted.

.UZ was delegated to IANA on April 29, 1995. As a result, on April 30, the national Uzbek domain turned 23 years old.^[22]

The number of domains in the.PT zone has exceeded 1 million

The DNS.PT registry, which manages the Portuguese national domain, reported on its official website in March 2018 that the number of names registered in the.PT domain zone exceeded 1 million for the first time in history.

The report notes that the "jubilee" was the meckos.pt domain, registered by the Portuguese industrial company Meckos, which produces equipment for textile production.

According to the registry, DNS.PT completed 2017 with 976,370 registered domain names, and already in 2018 was able to add more than 23 thousand domains. So, in January, 10,693 names were registered in the.PT domain - 30% more than in January 2017. As of March 15, 1,001,552 names have already been registered in the Portuguese national domain.^[23]

2010:.com and.net - the most popular domain zones

The most popular domain zone on the Internet in 2010 was the.com zone - by the end of 2010 there were 88.8 million second-level domains. In second place in popularity ".net" - 13.2 million. Domains in the national zones of various countries gained 79.2 million.

Interesting facts

• According to Verisign, at the end of 2012, there were more than 252 million domain names in the world. In the fourth quarter of 2012, more than 6 million domain names were registered. Over the year, the number of domain name registrations worldwide increased by 11.8%, or 26.6 million domain names.

A little less than half of the total number of domain names in the world are names in.com and.net domains: now these two domains account for 121.1 million registered domain names. Growth in the two domains, which are also managed by Verisign, was 6.4 percent for the year. Renewal of domain names in.com and.net in the 4th quarter of 2012 occurred in 72.9% of cases.

• There are only 6 single-letter domain names in the world. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Это q.com, x.com, z.com, i.net, q.net и x.org

• The Japanese website http ://www.3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971639393751058209749444592.jp, whose name consists of 65 characters, is dedicated to the number "pi."

• The largest domain name at the time of mid-2009 belongs to the social network: http://www.kakzdorovochtovsemyzdessegodnyasobralis.ru

Domain Security

2024: Attackers spread malware under the guise of well-known office applications

Analysts at F.A.C.C.T. have identified over 1,300 domains that spread malware masquerading as office applications and popular utilities: for example, programs for processing photos or videos, as well as well-known antiviruses. This was announced on June 21, 2024 by the press service of the State Duma deputy RFAnton Nemkin.

The company noted that users intending to install unlicensed versions software of the popular, as a result, downloaded to their computers malicious, ON including spy.

It is also reported that in 2024 new domains containing malicious content began to appear. In the first quarter, 28 new domain name registrations have already been discovered.

As a rule, in this way malware is distributed either by publishing software on torrent sites where there is no content moderation, or by creating phishing resources. Recently, it was the last scenario that became especially popular, since it allows attracting much more unsuspecting users, the deputy explained.

The popularity of steelers is due to the fact that they can bypass antivirus protection. At the same time, there are a lot of options for what a steeler can be disguised as. For example, a styler can mimic an application or browser extension. In fact, for any user download, - he explained.

According to BI.ZONE, the same steelers were distributed in the corporate sector by sending phishing emails. In addition, malicious cryptominers are increasingly beginning to spread. This is one of the types of malware designed to intercept the unused computing power of the user's device and redirect it for cryptocurrency mining. Of course, there is no user consent to this. All that a person receives is a noticeable decrease in the efficiency of his computer, the deputy warned.

Pirated resources, as a rule, initially present exactly such software. As of June 2024, Russian citizens, indeed, have problems with the purchase of licensed products of departed foreign companies. But it is better not to take risks and pay attention to the software of Russian vendors. Key office programs have already been replaced and are not inferior to foreign counterparts, the parliamentarian said.

2023

Malicious domains in Runet are blocked at a record speed

The Coordination Center for Domains.RU/.RF on December 13, 2023 announced that by the end of November 2023, the fight against malicious domains in Runet reached a new level: the average response time in the Domain Patrol project dropped to a record 11.4 hours. Read more here.

70% Phishing Domains - Digital

According to the Coordination Center of Domains.RU/.RF, most of the domains separated in Russian zones due to phishing activity are digital, that is, containing only numbers, or numbers and several liters. the company announced this on August 17, 2023.

Such domain names are used to simulate the transition to the sites of Russian banks, marketplaces and online services. Fraudsters send users generated phishing links to these domains to pay for goods and delivery, and to reduce the vigilance of the victim, the name of the imitated site or service is added to the digital part of the domain: for example, sberbank.ld1252.ru, youla.id-4007.ru or avito.id6990.ru.

According to the Coordination Center, the use of digital domains by phishers began during the COVID-19 epidemic along with an increase in demand for various delivery services, but quickly gained popularity and became widespread in August 2023. So, if in 2020 the share of such domains was 10-20% of the total number of applications by competent organizations to registrars, in 2022 - about 50% of applications, then according to the results of 6 months of 2023, their share increased to 70% of applications.

According to experts of the Coordination Center, the active use of digital domains is associated with the ease of their generation and the lack of need to come up with a unique dictionary component for each name, despite the fact that the supply of words and abbreviations in any domain is limited. In addition, such domains are used by foreign attackers who do not speak Russian. In particular, during the June attack on the zone RF of more than 2,600 digital domains, it was registered on citizens' data PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA and used for distribution. malware

In order not to become a victim of scammers, users should be extremely careful with digital domains and remember that the domain name is read from right to left. Therefore, even if Yula or Avito services begin to use third-level domains, you can trust the id6990.avito.ru domain, but not avito.id6990.ru. And also, in case of doubt, do not neglect the call to the support service of a particular service to clarify the information, - advised Evgeny Pankov. - We assume that the fight against digital domains, as well as with phishing in Runet as a whole, will become much more effective after the introduction of mandatory confirmation of the identity of the domain name administrator through the ESIA (State Public services portal), and until that moment users need to be attentive to links, especially in connection with financial and commercial operations. If you encounter fraud on the Internet, you need to send a complaint about this resource through the hotline to one of the competent organizations on the Domain Patrol website. If the violation is confirmed, the domain delegation will be terminated in the shortest possible time.

Dutch national domain to ban third-party privacy protection services

The SIDN registry, which manages the Dutch national domain.NL, announced on its website that it was imposing a ban on the use of third-party privacy protection services to hide registrants' data. Such services are often used by individuals who do not want their information - names, contact details, etc. - to be available to Whois users. This was announced on July 20, 2023 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC).

SIDN representatives explain the decision for two reasons. First of all, since 2003, name registrants in the Dutch national domain can use the opt-out scheme and hide the ability to view their data. And secondly, since 2010, the data of private registrants, by definition, have not been uploaded to public access. Thus, there is simply no need for additional privacy measures.

The second reason is that the registrant should be able to contact the registrant directly at any time. This is mainly due to the need to effectively combat the illegal use of domain names. Unfortunately, in many cases, registrants resort to the services of third-party privacy protection services precisely in situations where they intend to use their domain names for unseemly purposes.

The ban on the use of third-party privacy protection services applies to both registrants and accredited registrars, and will take effect on October 1, 2023. Relevant changes will be made to the SIDN General Regulations and Rules of Use. At the first stage, the rules will affect only newly registered domain names, but in the future the registry plans to extend them to domains registered earlier.

The registry emphasizes that it recognizes the existence of situations where the registrant seeks to hide his connection with the domain name for legitimate purposes. These are, for example, cases when a company prepares the release of new goods or services on the market and plans their promotion campaigns. In such situations, companies often register domain names for future new products, but prefer not to advertise this so as not to disclose their plans ahead of time. For such cases, a procedure is provided for assigning the Inactive status to the domain name. The domain is registered by the registrar company without a connection DNS-servers and remains virtually "invisible" until its active use begins.

2022: FTC accuses a number of XYZ.com registry managers of illegally collecting personal data of citizens

On January 17, 2022, it became known that the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accused a number of heads of the XYZ.com registry of illegally collecting personal data of citizens and subsequently reselling it to third parties.

According to the FTC, Daniel Negari, as well as the operations director of the registry, Michael Ebrose, business development manager Jason Ramin, general counsel Grant Carpenter and two other employees who are not directly involved in the domain business, are involved in creating a network of about 200 websites that promised users the ability to quickly obtain loans. In fact, the sites were collecting personal data from applications filled out by users. Then this information was resold to third parties, and among the buyers there were not only financial companies that really provided loans. Thus, the personal data of citizens turned out to be in the hands of fraudsters.

It should be noted that although the first persons of the XYZ.com registry were involved in this dubious business, the registry itself, apparently, had nothing to do with these operations. All domains mentioned in the FTC papers that served to collect personal data of loan applicants were also registered in the.COM zone, and not in the.XYZ domain. Thus, it would be unfair to reproach the domain itself for some unseemly activity. However, the current situation, of course, can negatively affect the reputation of the domain zone.

However, lawyer Derek Newman, representing the interests of XYZ.com leaders, said that the FTC accusations are absolutely unfounded.

Nevertheless, "since a lawsuit with the Federal Trade Commission would have taken away too much funds and resources, my clients chose to resolve this issue and continue to engage in their business," Domain Incite quoted the lawyer as saying the news.

As a settlement, top XYZ.com managers agreed to pay $1.5 million.^[24]

2020: Over 660 thousand "coronavirus" domains registered during the pandemic

Security specialist Cyon Lloyd of ICANN Corporation presented the results of the study conducted by the corporation. This was announced on June 25, 2020 by the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet (CC).

ICANN experts studied the zone files of all common top-level domains and a number of national domains. They searched for domain names that had not only a direct connection with the pandemic (for example, containing the words COVID-19 or virus), but also potentially associated with it indirectly (for example, using the words mask - "mask" or quarantine - "quarantine"). In addition, homographic domain names were also taken into account - those in which one of the letters in the keyword was replaced by a number or symbol from another language (for example, C0VID instead of COVID).

In total, from the beginning of the pandemic to the end of March 2020, 662,111 domain names were identified, the registration of which could theoretically be associated with the spread of COVID-19. However, Lloyd estimates that the figure is much lower in reality. He believes that "with an eye" on the pandemic, about 170 thousand domain names were registered. The main thing is that only a small part of them were registered for illegal purposes - the phishing attacks spread of fake news, trade fake vaccines, etc. At the peak of the pandemic, ICANN specialists had to notify registrars about the potential malware of registered domains on average about 10 times a day. As of June 25, 2020, 3-4 similar cases are recorded per day.

This information is fully confirmed by the statistics of the registrars and registrars themselves, reports Domain Incite. Thus, the representative of the large domain registrar Tucows Graham Bunton noted that in March, at the peak of concern about the pandemic, the number of "coronavirus" domains that the company's customers sought to register was about 300 per day. Each application for such a domain was checked by the company, and the proportion of domains identified as registered for knowingly illegal purposes averaged 0.5% of the total. Bunton also noted that about 70% of all domains registered through the company were not used at all to create sites and remain parked.

2019

Special services sent 831 requests to block domain names

831 requests were sent to the registrars by the special services to remove the delegation of domain names - such data were published in the report of the Coordination Center for the National Domain of the Internet based on the results of the activities of competent organizations in January 2019. Compared to January 2018, the number of requests more than doubled, and on average in 2018, registrars received about 400 requests from competent organizations per month.

Analysis of violating domains by the type of detected malicious activity in the reporting period showed that the leading place belongs to domain names associated with phishing (416 requests). This is followed by botnet controllers (251 cases), resources used to distribute malicious software (151 cases), and resources with pornographic material involving minors (1 case). Also, 12 requests contained requests from competent organizations to initiate verification of administrator identification information.

As of February 6, 2019, 819 domain names remain blocked (in 12 cases, delegation was restored at the request of the relevant competent organization after the blocking reason was eliminated).^[25]

Several thousand domains stolen due to vulnerability in GoDaddy systems

On January 23, 2019, it became known that a vulnerability in GoDaddy systems allowed attackers to "hijack" other people's domains. This is exactly what happened in mid-December 2018, when users in the United States and Canada were covered by a wave of spam. Read more here.

Domain Protection

Losing domain names can be a real disaster, so we will provide 8 tips to help you protect yourself from this:

• Set up a process to renew your domain names regularly. The easiest way to lose a domain name is to forget to renew it in time. Installing a regular update is very simple: you need to configure the organizer on the desktop so that it can constantly remind you in a month that the domain name expires. Many registrars now allow you to synchronize domains, and the use of different domains may expire at the same time. This makes them much more convenient to manage than before. You can update domain names every one, two, five or ten years, but be careful when choosing to resume less often, once a year, as you can just forget and not renew the domain name on time. You can also choose to update automatically, but remember that it will also increase your risks.

• Check your domain name registrar's contact information regularly. He must email his contact information every time it changes. It can also contact you when there are, for example, problems with payments, or when someone tries to transfer your domain name.

• Take care of the security of your account. Anyone who gets access to your account on the registrar's website can take away your domain name or re-register it to a new owner, so the security of your account is vital. You need to protect your account with a strong and long password that is not so easy for a hacker to find. You can use additional methods (for example, two-factor authentication using a token or one-time code that is sent via sms to your phone). It is also important to change the password if the person responsible for managing domain names leaves your organization.

• Use the "registrar lock." Some registrars offer a feature called "registrar lock" ("domain lock" or "transfer lock"), which can prevent your domain from being illegally taken away without your permission. This feature will not protect your domain from anyone who has access to your account, but it can protect against attempts to transfer domain names by those who know your phone or e-mail.

• Use domain privacy settings. Some registrars charge an additional fee for the "domain privacy" function. It allows you to protect your name, address and contact information contained in the whois database. Domain name thieves can use this information to transfer it to the new owner or hack the account password.

• Use the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP). It provides legal protection for your domain name if this feature is supported by the registrar. This gives you the ability to select (or be assigned to) a unique authorization code (AIC) for each domain to be provided to the new registrar before your domain is transferred to it. If your AIC is secure, it will ensure effective domain protection. It is worth remembering that some registrars make this data available to those who log in under your account to the registrar's website.

• Please use permanent email addresses. When you identify your contact e-mail addresses, avoid using a name that can be closed and transferred to another owner if you do not use it. If this happens, the new owner can enter into correspondence with your registrar or use the function "restore password" from the registrar.

Be suspicious of emails purportedly from your registrar. Never reply to emails asking you to log in to the registrar's website and make changes to the settings for the domain name. This email may lead you to an exact copy of your registrar's website, where account details can be taken away. To avoid this, always manually enter in the address bar the address of your registrar 8^[26]

2018: Europe began to block "bad" domains within 24 hours

.BE domain names used for fraudulent purposes will now be blocked for 24 hours. This is stated in a statement by DNS Belgium, which acts as the registrar of the Belgian national domain.BE, reported on November 28, 2018 in the "Coordination Center for RU/RF Domains" with reference to the Domain Name Ware resource. The updated policy of the Belgian National Registry comes into force on December 1. Domain names can be deleted at the request of the Belgian Federal Public Service for Economics (FPS Economy).

DNS Belgium estimates that at least "several hundred" fraudulent websites appear in the.BE domain over the year. However, earlier FPS Economy could not ask DNS Belgium to block the domain name only on the basis of the presence of illegal content on the site using this domain. Operational blocking was carried out only in relation to domain names that provided inaccurate information about the administrator. To block the domain on the basis of content, it was necessary to submit an application to the Crown Prosecution Service, which took at least two weeks. Now this procedure can be performed within 24 hours.

At the same time, the administrator of the blocked domain name will be given two weeks to take action. This domain name will be completely removed from the registry in 6 months.^[27]

According to the "Coordination Center for RU/RF Domains," this approach is not used in all European countries. For example, the Danish National Domain Registry.DK recently found that the fight against false information about domain name owners led to the elimination of almost all sites used for fake online stores.

For Russian national domains .RU and.RF, the practice of combating phishing domains is not new, the administrator's representatives noted.

The fight against phishing is one of the main specializations of many companies included in the pool of competent organizations of the "Coordination Center for.RU/.RF Domains." The need to block phishing domains as quickly as possible is caused, first of all, by the fact that a user who enters such a site can lose a lot of money within just a few minutes. Competent organizations quickly inform the registrars of the domain on which the phishing site appeared, and thus stop its work, - explained representatives of the "Coordination Center for RU/RF Domains."

See also

• Internet
• Domain System Regulation

Notes