EuroDNS Blog

The United Kingdom 2012, Ancient Greece arrives in London’s East End, and no, it’s not a new restaurant; London will welcome 10,500 foreigners from 205 nations around the world. EuroDNS invites its customers to join the millions of spectators of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games and register a .CO.UK domain name today for only €5.99 valid until August 31, with promo code NLCOUK12B.

.CO.UK was introduced in 1985 as a second-level domain under .UK; it is widely used and recognized as the most popular domain extension in the United Kingdom. The .CO.UK domain takes precedence over .UK, the country’s ccTLD which has a restriction on new registrations. Online purchases are increasing every day and customers behaviour seems to indicate that they have more confidence buying from a website with their own country extension; big name brands recognizing this and utilize ccTLDs specific to the country they are targeting, for example Amazon and eBay. Equally, a company such as Triumph Motorcycles, known all over the world for its classic British motorbikes, treats its domain extension as part of its branding, triumph.co.uk shouts ‘Great Britain’.

Nations gather under the Union Flag

The vibrant, multicultural city is finalizing preparations; after years of blood, sweat and tears, London is ready and waiting. London 2012 begins on July 27, when Queen Elizabeth II will open the games; two weeks later it will all be over.

London was selected to host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games on July 6, 2005; this will be the first time a city has hosted the modern games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and 1948. Countries all over the world are asking; how many medals will we win? Do the beach volley ball teams really wear bikinis, even the men? Will Beckham play? Will it rain all the time? What is that London 2012 logo all about? How do we become a part of this historic event?

In answer to the questions, EuroDNS are here to help: we shall see, take a camera just in case, unfortunately not, take an umbrella – it’s England, good question, register a .CO.UK domain name now!

Address the nation

No medals, unfortunately; just lots of new visitors. Register a .CO.UK domain name now, entering the promo code NLCOUK12B, before August 31. 

Daniel Eisenhut, Chief Sales Officer, EuroDNS said, “EuroDNS would like to offer the .CO.UK extension to our customers, it will inspire trust and confidence and your business can only benefit.”

Daniel continued, “EuroDNS not only registers international domain names; we also offer a wide range of solutions and services to support our customers with all their domain needs. The list of services currently includes local presence services, Whois Privacy, and ProDNS which delivers safe and secure DNS services with no risk of data loss. For more information, customers can visit our website www.eurodns.com or contact our sales office at sales@eurodns.com, where our domain experts are on hand to help.”

To register or transfer an existing .CO.UK domain name, please visit the EuroDNS website. Check out the offers page on our website to find out about great promotions on domain extensions offered by EuroDNS.

To receive updates of new promo codes, exciting deals on domain extensions and the latest news from the domain industry, please subscribe to the EuroDNS newsletter.

In order to stay up-to-date about what is happening in the DNS industry, find EuroDNS on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

It’s the Formula 1 race calendar! It’s the European Football Championship! It’s the Eurovision Song Contest! No, better, it’s the EuroDNS European Summer Bundle. 

Yes, we are promoting domain extensions across Europe, namely: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and The United Kingdom. Register now with any of these country domains and add a hint of continental Europe to your website, valid until September 30, 2012.

The EuroDNS European Summer Bundle is our latest promotion; we want our customers to enjoy the summer, come rain or shine. The promotion is on 11 European domains, register today using the codes provided and be like a European; drive a Ferrari past windmills, eat a waffle with caviar, listen to punk rockers playing Chopin, read Sartre in German, dance the flamenco to ABBA whilst your cuckoo clock strikes the hour.

Target your audience

Speak to your European audience directly; by registering the ccTLD related to the country you want to target, you will increase trust, respect and loyalty with that particular audience. Users feel more confident engaging with a website local to their country; .COM’s popularity is global but when looking for local companies a ccTLD is the direction users will take. Targeting several countries is a good option for an international business; the most efficient way, and most beneficial for SEO purposes is to use separate ccTLDs hosted in the relevant country. EuroDNS published an article in June discussing the role of ccTLDs in the SEO world; it offers advice and opinion with regard registration of country code domain names.

Touring Europe with EuroDNS

Take a look at the list below and register with one, two, three, or all of the domains, your business can only improve. The promotion is valid until September 30, 2012.

PBBE12C .BE (Belgium) €9.99 

PBFR12E .FR (France)  €10.99 

PBDE12D .DE (Germany)  €9.99 

PBIT12A .IT (Italy)  €16.99 

PBNL12C .NL (Netherlands)  €10.99 

PBPL12B .PL (Poland) €14.99 

PBRU12A .RU (Russia)  €10.99 

PBES12C .ES (Spain)  €10.99 

PBSE12C .SE (Sweden) €16.99 

PBCH12B .CH (Switzerland) €16.99 

PBCOUK12D .CO.UK (United Kingdom)  €8.99 

Daniel Eisenhut, Chief Sales Officer, EuroDNS had this to say, “EuroDNS are offering these popular extensions, at a discounted rate, for the whole of the summer period. Any business will benefit greatly by talking directly to their audience, bringing more visitors and improving their search engine ranking.”

Daniel continued, “EuroDNS is a leading registrar that not only registers international domain names; we also deliver a range of solutions and services to support our customers with all their domain requirements. The list of services currently includes local presence services, Whois Privacy, and ProDNS which delivers safe and secure DNS services with no risk of data loss. For more information, customers can visit our website www.eurodns.com or contact our sales office at sales@eurodns.com, where our domain experts are on hand to help.”

To register or transfer an existing domain name, please visit theEuroDNS website. Check out the offers page on our website to find out about great promotions on domain extensions offered by EuroDNS.

To receive updates of new promo codes, exciting deals on domain extensions and the latest news from the domain industry, pleasesubscribe to the EuroDNS newsletter.

In order to stay up-to-date about what is happening in the DNS industry, find EuroDNS on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

June 24-29, 2012, EuroDNS delegates attended the ICANN 44 conference in Prague; on their return they summarized the highlights of the event. 

VeriSign secure .COM for a further six years

The ICANN board announced their approval of the renewal of VeriSign’s agreement to act as registry for the .COM domain. The agreement commences on December 1, 2012, finishing on November 30, 2018.

The ICANN board resolution contains new clauses, one introducing, “…modified provisions to bring .COM into line with other comparable agreements (.BIZ, .INFO, .NET and .ORG), including modifications to terms such as functional and performance specifications, Whois, indemnification, and broad audit provisions.”

Prior to the renewal of the agreement ICANN invited public comment, these comments were then taken into consideration when making their final decision. Several comments highlighted the concern regarding increases to the charges registrars pay for domain names registrations, the 2012 renewed agreement states, “Both the current .com registry agreement and the proposed renewal agreement permit VeriSign to increase the price it charges registrars for domain names registrations four times during the six-year term with each increase being no greater than 7 percent.”

The implications are that VeriSign can raise the registration fees by 7% in four of the next six years, as opposed to in all six years as was the original proposal; the price increases can be made without consultation.

Since 2006, the .COM registry fee has steadily increased; regrettably the new agreement allows this to continue. The most popular domain in the world, .COM continues to grow, VeriSign are surely set to increase their profit substantially. But, whilst they collect with one hand, they will have to give with the other; the quarterly fixed-fee VeriSign currently pay to ICANN has been cancelled in favor of payments of $0.25 per registered, transferred or renewed .COM domain, on top of the $0.18 per domain fee already paid.

It would be advisable if registrants considered registering ccTLDs as a more economical option; they are often cheaper and EuroDNS regularly offer country code domains with a promotion, reducing the price even further.

Reveal Day, what’s next?

…according to Kurt Pritz, Senior VP, ICANN, “the silent period”, whilst the new gTLDs are evaluated. On Reveal Day ICANN presented the results of the first round of applications, including:

• 1930 total number of applications

• 1179 unique applications

• 1000 applicants

• Luxembourg is 3rd in terms of applications per country, after America and the Cayman Islands.

Popular, ‘everyday’ words, with duplicated applications included: .APP (13), .HOME (11), .INC (11), .ART (10), .BLOG (9), .BOOK (9)

The first meeting, following Reveal Day, was attended by experts and consultants from the industry, offering their services to applicants looking to become registries and registrars. With millions of dollars on the table, these services have become indispensable.

With the possibility of 1179 new gTLDs entering the Internet, the earliest appearing in Q1, 2013, there are inevitable changes predicted. The public’s awareness of domain names will increase, along with the need for further knowledge as to how domain names and search engines work. 

Registrars will have to be prepared to support these new gTLDs; at EuroDNS each division is ready to offer specialized consultancy services for the new registries. With experts in development, technical and sales, services streamlined and automated, EuroDNS and its sister companies are fully equipped to handle future implementations.

• eBrand Services is involved in 30+ applications, and has developed a ‘quick search’ tool to access all the information regarding the New gTLD Application Database.

• OpenRegistry has been selected to act as technical backend provider for 24 applications.

EuroDNS has published several articles in its news section discussing the ICANN process, the figures and comments on the new gTLDs. 

Digital Archery

ICANN, anticipating more than 500 applications for new gTLDs, developed a system to implement a secondary time stamp for the process of batching the applications; the system became known as Digital Archery, because applicants would all have a sporting chance of hitting the target. 

To determine which applications would be handled first, applicants were invited to click on a button, on a given day; a few days later the applicant would be required to click the same button, at the exact same time as previously. 

Whilst sounding like a fun computer game, the batching process was of the utmost importance in determining which gTLDs would be available for registration first. Applicants selected for early release would have had a distinct advantage over later releases. However, on June 23, after concerns were aired regarding the fairness of Digital Archery and complaints of unexpected results and network latency, ICANN announced, “Operation of the digital archery portion of the New Generic Top-level Domain Program has been suspended.” 

It is to be hoped that applicants who rose to the challenge, investing money on developing a software solution to play the Digital Archery game, are not too ‘out of pocket’. ICANN has yet to announce a new process for the batching of the new gTLDs.

Trademark Clearinghouse, a globally available database

The Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) was designed as a central repository for trademark information, offering authentication of trademark data in the new gTLD domains. Providing services for the authentication and validation of brands, participating rights holders will be alerted if a domain name is put up for registration that matches TMCH records.  

On June 1, 2012, ICANN announced that Deloitte and IBM had been selected to administer the TMCH services; both the aforementioned parties will subcontract IPClearingHouse (aka CHIP) to promote these services. EuroDNS and eBrand Services are already accredited agents of the IPClearingHouse.

During the session with Deloitte and IBM it was announced that rights holders would be charged $150 per trademark registration, with an annual renewal fee representing a percentage of this amount. 

New gTLD registries will be charged a $10,000 fee per TLD, to connect to the TMCH database.

With this system in place, the Sunrise Periods for the new gTLDs, where trademark owners are given the opportunity to apply for their trademarks in the new gTLDs, should proceed more easily than in the past; it will also be less expensive for registrants.

Uniform Rapid Suspension system update

The URS system is similar to the UDRP, designed to address obvious cases of cybersquatting in domain names; but, URS results in suspension of the domain name for the length of its registration period, rather than transfer or cancellation. Intended as a complement to the UDRP, the URS filing fee, targeted to be $300-$500 per case, will be set by the URS provider. Trademark owners may file a complaint leading to the registrar involved immediately suspending the domain; the offending company has 14 days to dispute the complaint. An unsatisfactory answer or no response will mean the domain name is taken down.

During the session on the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS), current UDRP (Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy) providers expressed concern regarding successful implementation of the URS system, and doubts that the cost target could be met. With URS promoted as ‘low cost’, this situation will have to be addressed and work continued towards achieving this goal.

ICANN introduces new CEO

Fadi Chehade was announced as the new CEO of ICANN, he is a successful business man of Egyptian descent; born in Lebanon, at the age of 18 he arrived in America unable to speak a word of English. Fadi brings strong international experience and is fluent in four languages, Arabic, English, French and Italian. In his opening speech he said, “ICANN cannot become a fortress. ICANN must become an oasis, a place that people see and come to because it works, because it makes sense, because it's efficient.”

Fadi replaces outgoing president and CEO, Rod Beckstrom; he is scheduled to start officially on October 1, 2012 and his tenure will end July 1, 2015.

RAA Negotiation

EuroDNS, as a member of the Registrar Stakeholder Group (RrSG), participated in a number of sessions during the week relating to the current status of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) negotiations with ICANN. The RrSG serves as the voice of domain name registrars within the ICANN process.

The RAA is the agreement between ICANN and its accredited Registrars setting forth the terms under which Registrars operate and offer gTLD registrations to the public; the RAA is the Registrars’ “license to register”.

Discussions regarding the agreement began in November 2011; although significant progress has been made the negotiations are still not complete. Prior to the Prague meeting, ICANN posted a draft RAA, the RrSG responded with feedback and commentary. ICANN’s highest priorities are the areas of Whois verification and data retention requirements; ICANN and the RrSG have not yet reached agreement on particulars of the law enforcement recommendations. 

There were 12 recommendations, relating to the RAA, presented during a meeting between the RrSG and the Law Enforcement community. The RrSG accepted 10 of the 12 recommendations with little change; but, they have requested further discussion and feedback with regard Whois verification and data retention. 

Luxembourg based registrar, EuroDNS, will face little or no disruption from the 10 requests already accepted, as the company is already bound by the country’s law on e-commerce.

The two recommendations still under discussion and being contended by the RrSG are; 

• the performance of registrant’s data verification for all gTLDs (existing and future); and

• lengthy and invasive (illicit under European Law) retention and divulgation of EuroDNS’ customers details to ICANN.

Invasion of registrants’ privacy and the numerous uncertainties regarding the methods of implementation means the two remaining recommendations may be subject to a ‘Policy Development Process’, via which the public and all concerned parties will be able to provide their input.

EuroDNS announces a special, limited time offer on .BE domain names. With this promotion, EuroDNS customers can register new or transfer existing domain names at a promotional rate. Valid until July 31, 2012, register a .BE domain name for only €2.99. Enter the promo code PRBE12B and subscri.BE to the vi.BE.

The EuroDNS promotion offers companies, organizations and individuals, the opportunity to register a .BE domain name; it is an excellent way for local and international companies to promote their products and services in Belgium. With no restrictions, registration is open to everyone; registering a .BE domain name will strengthen and protect company’s online brand, whilst providing localized information to a Belgian audience. For a Belgian company, registering a .BE domain name demonstrates commitment and loyalty to local customers, thereby instilling trust; audience’s that trust, will applaud.

The .BE domain is under the control of DNS Belgium and currently, there are over 1,300,000 domains registered.

So you wanna.BE?

The Kingdom of Belgium is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU headquarters in its capital city, Brussels; the motto of the EU being ‘United in diversity’, promoting a more tolerant way of life. This makes it a really important country. But enough about that, what makes this country so special, so great, so brilliant, so… smurftastic, is that it is the birthplace of the Smurfs. These small blue creatures, three apples high, promote life as a cooperative; holding the belief that each Smurf has something he or she is good at, and can contribute to their society.  Called Schtroumpfs in Belgium, they were created by Pierre Culliford under the pen name Peyo.

BEhold, the EuroDNS promotion

Daniel Eisenhut, Chief Sales Officer, EuroDNS said, “At EuroDNS we always try to give our customers what they want, with the best possible service. We are offering this promotion on .BE domain names, and we know that all who register this domain name extension will benefit greatly. Until July 31, all .BE domain names are available for registration and transfer for only €2.99.”

Daniel continued, “EuroDNS does a whole lot more than just registering domain names; we offer an increasing range of solutions and services to assist our customers with all their domain requirements. The list currently includes local presence service, Whois Privacy, and ProDNS which delivers safe and secure DNS services with no risk of data loss. For more information, customers can visit our website www.eurodns.com or speak to one of our domain experts at sales@eurodns.com.”

To register or transfer an existing .BE domain at the unbeatable price of €2.99, visit our website, and enter promo code: PRBE12B, valid until July 31, 2012.

Please check out the offers page on our website to find more promotions on domain extensions offered by EuroDNS. 

To receive updates of new promo codes, exciting deals on domain extensions and the latest news from the domain industry, please subscribe to our newsletter.

Montenegro is throwing a party; National Day (Statehood Day) is celebrated on July 13 and marks the anniversary of Montenegro becoming an independent state. EuroDNS is gate-crashing this party and bringing a gift, a time limited promotion on .ME domain names. Valid until July 27, register a .ME domain name for only €13.99; enter the promo code NDME12A and join .ME.

On July 13, 1878, the Congress of Berlin recognized Montenegro as the 27th independent state in the world, Statehood Day marks this momentous occasion. On June 3, 2006, Montenegro declared its independence from the state of Serbia and Montenegro; the following year ICANN delegated the .ME domain to the country, replacing the .YU domain previously shared with Serbia.

You, .ME and everyone

The potential of this domain as a generic name was soon apparent and in 2008 registration became available on a global scale. Officially the .ME is still a ccTLD but Google accepted it as an unofficial generic name and so, allows geo-targeting. Any website with a .ME domain name will benefit greatly in terms of searches and thus, enjoy more traffic. 

Making it personal with .ME, whether it’s for business or pleasure, creates a unique, highly visible website. Talk to your friends or talk to your customers, but remember to talk to .ME.

Hello world, this is .ME

Introduce yourself to the world, register a .ME domain name now, entering the promo code NDME12A; and say hello.

Daniel Eisenhut, Chief Sales Officer, EuroDNS said, “EuroDNS offers this popular extension to our customers with all the benefits offered by a .ME extension; express yourself, personalize your website, have fun and watch all the traffic pour in.”

Daniel continued, “EuroDNS not only registers international domain names; we also offer an increasing collection of solutions and services to support our customers with all their domain requirements. The list of services currently includes local presence services, Whois Privacy, and ProDNS which delivers safe and secure DNS services with no risk of data loss. For more information, customers can visit our website www.eurodns.com or contact our sales office at sales@eurodns.com, where our domain experts are on hand to help.”

To register with one of the above domains, please visit the EuroDNSwebsite. 

Check out the offers page on our website to find out about great promotions on domain extensions offered by EuroDNS.

To receive updates of new promo codes, exciting deals on domain extensions and the latest news from the domain industry, please subscribe to the EuroDNS newsletter.

In order to stay up-to-date about what is happening in the DNS industry, find EuroDNS on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.