Second new gTLDs: Another chance for African registrars? - ITREALMS

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ICANN board in 98 recommendations:
Obviously in compliance with the direction of the Board of Directors of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) at its meeting during the ICANN76 Community Forum in Cancún, Mexico; where some 98 recommendations were adopted regarding the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Policy Development Process Final Report as set forth in Section A of the Scorecard: Subsequent Procedures (SubPro PDP), the ICANN organization (org), kick-started the preliminary preparations to ensure official proclamation by August 1, 2023, including outreach engagement to stakeholders.

The ICANN76 meeting that held between March 11 and 16, 2023, thus set in motion the commencement of the implementation process for the next round of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs).

7yr on: Only 11 ICANN accredited Registrars are from Africa - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

For the past seven years, only 11 accredited Registrars of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) are from the African region, reports ITREALMS.

Investigations by ITREALMS showed that Upperlink Limited is the only ICANN accredited registrar from Nigeria, likewise Burundi, Ghana, Senegal and Tunisia have one each.

South Africa is leading with four ICANN accredited registrars, followed by Morocco with two, according to the African Domain Name System (DNS) market study conducted by ICANN in 2017.

A copy of the study available to ITREALMS, indicated that compared to other regions, Africa has a very small number of registrars accredited by ICANN, under its 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), which is the most current contract governing the registrar relationship with ICANN.

ITREALMS reports that those currently accredited by ICANN in Africa are namely, AFRIREGISTER S.A.; Arcanes Technologies; ATI; Diamatrix C.C.; Domain Name Services (Pty) Ltd; Genious Communications SARL/AU ; Ghana Dot Com Ltd; Internet Solutions (Pty) Ltd; Kheweul.com SA; Upperlink Limited; and Web4Africa Inc. 

However, ITREALMS  gathered that there are some inhibiting factors militating against the African potential ICANN registrars, including the laws and practices inhibiting freedom of expression online, which must be scrutinised as these inhibit content creation and hence demand for websites, blogs and domain names.

Rules governing who may register a domain and how to do so, ITREALMS reports, should be as simple as possible and easily available, stressing for example, that rules in place in some countries require domain names to match the business cum personal name of the entity should be removed.

Similarly, ITREALMS further gathered, that those countries requiring registrants to have a legal presence in their country should review these with the aim of removing such requirements. 

“Requirements, if any, relating to compliance prior to registration of all intellectual property rights laws should be removed and rules should rather focus on add addressing violations through alternative dispute resolution mechanisms after registration,” part of the study stated.

Chuks Egbune/DoP

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ICANN terminates 40 registrars

In 7 Years Global Internet coordinating organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has sacked an estimated 40 registrars in the past seven years, with 2009 recording the highest figure.