Cotonou to host Sixth Africa DNS Forum - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

The city of Cotonou in Benin Republic is set to host the sixth Africa DNS Forum slated for on July 3 through 5th with the theme “Building a Sustainable Domain Name Industry in Africa” reports ITRealms.

The Forum, ITRealms gathered, is co-organized by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Africa Top Level Domains Organization (AfTLD), and AfRegistrar. It will be hosted by the Regulatory Authority of Communications Electronics in Benin (ARCEP). This year's forum follows on the success of the preceding forums, held in Durban, South Africa (2013), Abuja, Nigeria (2014), Nairobi, Kenya (2015), Marrakech, Morocco (2016), and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (2017).

Over the past six years, the Africa DNS Forum has become an important annual event, bringing together regional players and world experts in the DNS field to share experiences, best practices, and provide updates on developments in the domain industry. 

ITRealms reports that this year’s three-day event builds on the takeaways from the previous one, and addresses key issues that directly concern the regional industry. Among this year’s topics are data protection and privacy, registry and registrar platform development, Internationalized Domain Names and Universal Acceptance initiatives in Africa, and investment opportunities in the Africa DNS industry.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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25 countries storm Contonou for ICANN domain names, trademarks workshop

ITRealms:

A two-day workshop on domain names, trademarks and rights protection on the continent ends at the Hotel Novotel Orisha Cotonou with 25 African countries participating, ITRealms reports.

Also, ITRealms reports that over 80 attendees came from the 25 participating African countries.

The workshop put together by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ITRealms gathered was opened by Komi Koutche, the Beninese, Minister for Information and Communications Technology in the company of Mr. David Olive, ICANN’s Vice President for Policy Development Support.

Additionally, ITRealms gathered that participants cut across the country code Top Level Domain  (ccTLD) managers, registrars, practitioners of intellectual property rights, rights protection specialists to name a few and had the opportunity to share best practices for the protection of users' rights on the continent.

According to Olive, “Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) will have a profound impact on brand owners, regional industry and consumers,” stressing that it is important that ICANN supports Africa in its strategy to promote Internet industry.

He also revealed to ITRealms that the workshop affords ccTLD managers and registrars to be better equipped for the rapid implementation of measures for the security, management and promotion of ccTLDs.

“This is a critical part in enabling the Domain Name industry to flourish in African digital economy,” he said.

Pierre Dandjinou , the Vice President of ICANN for Africa, disclosed to ITRealms that the protection of rights is hardly addressed in Africa and mechanisms for protection of existing rights are not very popularized on the continent hence the workshop,

“As many African countries having started to organize their structures of intellectual property rights, it may be necessary to better inform them on the relationship between domain names, trademarks and the mechanisms for conflict resolution,“ Dandjinou said.

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Photo: Pierre Dandjinou , the Vice President of ICANN for Africa