We just wrapped up development on a complete rewrite our Managed DNS service and it will be going live on October 8th, 2009.
Our developer team undertook the task of rewriting the DNS ordering and management process inside the Reseller Web Interface (RWI) and away from the RWI2. While they were at it, they also added DNS to the OpenSRS XML API as opposed to the Tucows Provisioning Protocol API (TPP) where it current lives. The result of that rewrite was released to the Horizon Test Environment on October 1st, 2009 and includes a number of other changes that we think you’re going to like.
The current Managed DNS Service is Still Fully Available
One thing to note right away is that the current Managed DNS system isn’t going anywhere for now. If you are using Managed DNS, you’ll have lots of time to more over to the new DNS service and we’ll keep you well informed about any important dates and exactly how to move over to the new service. Right now, we’re looking at about a 6 month time frame where we’ll be running both systems in parallel.
What’s new, and what’s improved
The new DNS system addresses a couple of issues surrounding the current Managed DNS service that we’ve long sought to eliminate.
First off, DNS is moving from the RWI2 and the TPP API and into the RWI and OpenSRS API. That accomplishes a couple of other things at the same time:
It transitions DNS into the OpenSRS API and out of the TPP API.
It eliminates the whole ordering process in the RWI2 that tended to confuse and confound some Resellers.
The net result is that DNS services are much easier to order, configure and manage. Provisioning DNS along with a new domain order is as easy as adding a command to the API call to add DNS to the domain, configured with a default template. Adding DNS to a new domain order via the RWI is as simple as ticking a check box during the domain order process which adds DNS to the domain, again, fully configured with a template or your choice.
Additionally, there is now support for IPv6 AAAA records in the new Managed DNS Service.
For the end-user facing Manage Web Interface (MWI) there are some changes as well. We’ve added the ability for end-users to manage their own zone records and set domain forwarding (including domain masking, if desired).
Still Free!
As with the current Managed DNS Service, DNS is included free with your OpenSRS Reseller account.
Add .IN, .BZ and .WS to the list of ccTLDs you can sell through OpenSRS beginning October 8th, 2009. The addition of these new extensions brings the total number of ccTLDs that OpenSRS offers to 22.
Here’s what’s being added:
.IN (India) – India’s population of over 1.2 billion people represents a huge and increasingly connected market for domains and Internet services. That said, there are no residency requirements for .IN domains and anyone can register one. In addition to second level domains (e.g. example.in), you can also register the following third level domains: co.in, net.in, org.in, firm.in, gen.in, and ind.in. To start things off with a bang, we’re rolling out a .IN promotion at the same time. From launch through to the end of October, .IN domains are just $2.99! Find out more and sign up.
.WS (Western Samoa/WebSite) – While Western Samoa might not seem like the largest of markets for domain names, the fact that the ccTLD .WS can represent the word WebSite has made .ws domains a fairly popular alternative to other extensions for personal and small business websites. There are no residency requirements for .WS domains.
.BZ (Belize) – .BZ domains are promoted as an alternative domain extension for businesses. There are no residency requirements for .BZ domains.
.NL (Netherlands) – Effective October 2, 2009, the residency requirements for .NL domain registrations have been effectively removed as the Registry is now providing a local presence for those registrants who don’t have one. Simply submit any non-resident .NL domain registrations as normal, with the correct contact information and we’ll be sure to add the local presence upon submission to the registry.
ccTLDs Growing Strong
The latest VeriSign Domain Name Industry Brief was released in September and it highlighted something that we’ve been saying for a while now – Country-Code Top-level domains (ccTLDs) are hot, and getting hotter.
While growth in Generic Top-level domains (gTLDs) has slowed somewhat of late, ccTLDs continue to show impressive growth of 14% year-over-year. With a total of 74.4 million registrations, ccTLDs now represent over 40% of the total domain registrations worldwide.
Taking a look at the top ten TLDs in terms of number of registrations shows half are ccTLDs. In fact, .CN and .DE both out-rank .NET and .ORG!
The numbers add up to this: ccTLDs represent a significant sales opportunity to Resellers. Ignore this trend and you will miss out on a real area with strong growth potential.
We’re continuing to look at ccTLDs and we’re committed to adding more ccTLD options for our Resellers in the future.
EurID, the .EU (European Union) Registry operator, just reported a great July for new registrations with a total of 66,129 new .EU domains registered. That’s up 15% from July 2008 and is a 12-month high for the Registry.
EURid also reported strong a strong renewal rate of 81%, higher than the industry norm and a good indication that buyers are using and holding on to .EU domains. For more on .EU, you should take a look at Heather’s .EU profile in the “Registries” series.
ccTLDs Looking Strong
It’s not just .EU, either. We’re continuing to see some nice growth amongst ccTLDs (Country-code Top-Level Domains) and while many Resellers are already selling ccTLDs in addition to COM/NET/ORG, some are not. There’s lots of opportunity here for sales, either for individuals or business looking to identify with a country or region, or as an add-on in addition to a .COM domain. Make sure you’re offering ccTLDs both ways.
For example, a Canadian-based webhost should be offering the .CA (Canada) when it’s available (either as the first result, or as an add-on option). Same goes for other countries and regions. You’d be surprised how many people will take the ccTLD instead of the .COM, or even in addition to the .COM when you present them with the option.
Worldwide, .CN (China) and .DE (Germany) continue to battle it out for top spot amongst ccTLDs. .DE recently retook the lead from .CN. Rounding out the top five according to the VeriSign Domain Name Industry Brief are .UK (United Kingdom), .NL (Netherlands) and .EU.
We’ve mentioned that VeriSign report in the past, but it bears repeating here: it’s must read material for anyone in the domain industry. There’s lots to learn there, specifically about stats and trends that can help you grow your business.
At HostingCon 2009 a few weeks back, Adam Eisner, our Director of Domain Services highlighted ccTLDs as one of his “20 Ways to Outsmart Your Competitors”. The slides for the presentation are available as a PDF download for those that missed it. Adam noted that the real growth in the domain industry is taking place in ccTLDs and web hosts who ignore the market are risking missing out.
We’re actively working on adding more ccTLDs to the list here at OpenSRS and we’ll have some news to report on that front in the next couple of months.
A full list of the various domains available through OpenSRS, including list pricing, is available here.
Extended Validation (EV) SSL Certificates for $199? Yes, you heard correctly.
Through the end of 2009, GeoTrust True BusinessID with EV certs are just $199 from OpenSRS. That’s a little less than half of the regular price for a GeoTrust EV cert.
This exceptional price will be in effect through the end 2009 and applies to new cert orders and renewals.
There’s a huge opportunity here to bring EV certs to your customers at a price that is not much more than a standard, non-EV cert. It’s also a great time for you to add the green bar to your own website and lead by example.
By the way, if you are an OpenSRS Reseller and you haven’t been selling digital certificates, this is a great chance to make a splash with your customer base by adding a full range of SSL products to your lineup along with a huge deal on EV SSL from GeoTrust.
More to come
We rushed this promo out the door so you could start taking advantage of the huge savings as soon as possible. Over the next little bit, we’ll be pushing out some marketing materials for that will help you when selling these EV certs to your customers.
There’s more details in the SSL section of our website, including a complete product list with pricing.
Over the past couple of days a number of OpenSRS people have been attending the Regional Gathering of ICANN-Accredited Registrars gTLD Registries right here in Toronto, Canada.
For some of us, including myself, it’s a first direct exposure to the workings of ICANN. I’ve peeked in via the Internet during a couple of the big International Meetings over the past few years since joining Tucows, but this is my first time sitting in the room, with a ICANN logo on a badge around my neck.
Discussions have been quite lively at times, with good dialogue between ICANN staff, a number of Registry representatives and also with the various Registrars in attendance. Topics like the new Registrar Accreditation Agreement, data escrow, compliance and abuse have all fostered some healthy debate between interested parties. Of course, not everything is a debate – there’s also plenty of consensus on certain topics like protection of registrant rights and other issues.
What’s very interesting about these meetings is that it’s an opportunity to participate in or watch as Internet policy is developed and implemented. Adam Eisner, our Director of Domain Services, has been active in ICANN over the past few years, attending International Meetings all around the world. He pointed out last evening that being involved in ICANN means that you are a part of the decision making process that leads to changes that have a direct effect on the Internet and how it works.
Talk about pressure! ICANN and those involved in ICANN meetings, including Tucows/OpenSRS and everyone in attendance here today, hold the future of the Internet in their collective hands.
You’re probably aware that Tucows is quite active in ICANN and have been for many, many years. Our corporate values include the statement, “The Internet is the greatest agent for positive change the world has ever seen.” Because of this belief, we feel that it is our responsibility to work with ICANN and the other stakeholders (including the general public) to ensure that this incredible resource is properly nurtured.
ICANN can be a frustrating experience at times. But that is more a reflection of the understanding that those involved have around the task they have taken on. Everything that is done has to be considered carefully. “Trying things out” isn’t a good approach when dealing with a global network of such power and importance. “Done right the first time” is pretty much the only option for ICANN and those involved in decision making and implementation.
It’s been a humbling experience and a considerable privilege to be even a small part of it.
This was originally posted back in February of 2008, but the information is still quite valid. We get calls daily from domain holders who have fallen victim to domain slamming. Every domain holder who pays the ‘bill’ and transfers a domain to the domain slammer is a customer lost. Make sure you are educating your customers about this.
Domain name renewal schemes are nothing new – we’ve been dealing with them for years – but we figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea to bring them to your attention once again. A quick Google search brings up thousands of examples.
The usual tactic, known as domain slamming, is fairly basic – unethical companies mine WHOIS records for Registrant information and domain expiry dates. Then, months in advance, they contact the Registrant either by mail or email with a very official looking and sounding document or message that tells them to protect their valuable name by renewing early. A Google Images search brings up a couple of scanned examples.
Of course, when the Registrant sends the cheque or pays by credit card, thinking they are doing the right thing, what actually happens is that a Registrar transfer is initiated. The Registrant will then blindly go through the steps to complete the transfer, again thinking they are doing the right thing to protect their valuable domain name.
Combatting this is really fairly simple. I spoke with Paul Karkas, our Compliance Manager, who has been dealing with this kind of thing for years and has a few recommendations for resellers:
WHOIS Privacy. This is the absolute best protection. It stops the practice dead in its tracks as there is no way for to contact the Registrant directly. Encourage your customers to take advantage of WHOIS Privacy and the protection it offers. Tucows includes WHOIS Privacy for free as part of our domains package.
Domain locking. A locked domain can’t be transferred, again, preventing the domain slam. The transfer attempt may generate a support call by the Registrant to remove the lock, in which case you have the perfect opportunity to make sure the transfer is legitimate.
Communication. Let your customers know about this practice and ensure that your customers know who you are and who their Registrar is. Clearly spell out your communication policies surrounding renewals (i.e. “We never send mail invoices reminding you to renew.”) before the scammers have a chance to spread their mis-information.
The Registrant is only one of the victims in domain slamming. When your customers get taken by fake notices like these, you lose their domain business. But if you take the time to educate your customers, you reap the benefits of a better relationship in which the customer knows that you are on their side, looking out for their interests.
Last Thursday, Jay Schiavo of VeriSign joined us for a webinar about how to position and sell SSL certificates. Jay has been working with OpenSRS for a long time and has a very good understanding of our business and the needs of resellers like you.
For those who missed the webinar, we had intended to record and archive it for viewing, but thanks to a technical snafu, that recording failed, which absolutely stinks because it was probably the greatest webinar ever given (well, maybe not the greatest). My deepest apologies to those who were counting on that archive.
We do have Jay’s slides available as a PDF download, as well as a package of seven SSL whitepapers that VeriSign has put together for your use in marketing SSL products to your customers. Those whitepapers are brandable by you – all the information on what you need to do is contained in the download.
SSL – For more than eCommerce
Jay made some excellent points during his presentation. He explained the value of SSL from a security perspective, and highlighted some of the use cases for SSL. One of the points he made from a marketing perspective was to make sure that you point out that SSL certificates are applicable for more than just e-commerce sites. Anywhere that there is a login (including forums, blogs, customer portals, wikis) can and should be protected by by an SSL cert.
Three brands, pick two
Jay also broke down how to market the various brands of certs available through OpenSRS. We recently launched new SSL products, including SSL certs from VeriSign, thawte and GeoTrust.
Jay pointed out that it’s best to offer two of the three brands – choose between thawte and GeoTrust (for those customers looking for a lower cost cert) and then add VeriSign for those customers looking for that higher end brand.
When choosing between thawte and GeoTrust, it really comes down to a few points. First, if you are already offering GeoTrust, stick with it and just add VeriSign to your mix, if desired. Jay says that thawte has a strong brand presence in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, thanks to its South African corporate heritage. GeoTrust is well known in North America and parts of Asia.
Use and offer EV
Jay also talked about Extended Validation (EV) certs and the importance of both using EV certs for your own sites, where it makes sense, but also about the increasing recognition of the “green bar” that EV facilitates amongst Internet users. The EV cert offers a level of trust to Internet users that is a step above a ‘normal’ domain or organization validated SSL certificate.
We thank all those who attended the webinar, and we hope you found the content useful and applicable for your own business. Thanks also to our friends at VeriSign – and specifically Jay – for putting together such a great presentation.
Two items of note from Telnic, the Registry operator for the .TEL domain extension:
MX Records for .TEL domains
First up, Telnic has let us know that they will be updating the TelHosting platform on Thursday June 4th, 2009. The big news in this release of the web-based application where you manage your .TEL domains is the addition of MX Record management. We’ve had a couple of requests to add the ability to add MX records to .TEL domains since the launch of .TEL a few months back.
With this new release, it will be easy to add MX Records and to offer .TEL domain owners the ability to use their .TEL domains as email addresses.
.TEL domain owners can log in to the TelHosting platform at http://telhosting.opensrs.com/. There won’t be any downtime associated with the upgrade to the TelHosting platform, although Telnic suggests that users logged in at the time of the upgrade might experience a loss of session, requiring a re-login.
We’ll follow up with a few screenshots showing how to manage MX Records on Thursday, once the new version is up and running.
Superbook iPhone App
Also of note is the release of a new .TEL app for the iPhone called Superbook. Users of Apple’s popular phone and mobile Internet device can grab the app for free from the iPhone App Store. There’s more information for developers at the Telnic developers website. Interestingly, .TEL releases all its apps as open source projects, so you could download the source and create your own customized version of the app if you were so inclined.
Superbook allows iPhone users to lookup .TEL domains, act on the information (including dialing the stored phone numbers). It also uses the location services built into the iPhone to find .TEL entries based on your current location and the location data stored in the .TEL domain.
This application opens up some interesting possibilities for .TEL domains, especially considering the location integration. Users could use the app to find companies or retailers that are nearby, or use the app to keep track of friends.
There is a 1-hour maintenance window scheduled for .UK services by the Registry on Tuesday, June 2, 2009.
Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2009 Time: 07:00 – 08:00 UTC Your Local Time:Start to End
Service Impact:
Domain provisioning will be unavailable. Domains will continue to resolve normally.
.ASIA
There is a 4-hour maintenance window scheduled for .ASIA services by the Registry on Saturday, June 6, 2009.
Date: Saturday, June 6, 2009 Time: 15:00 – 19:00 UTC Your Local Time:Start to End
Service Impact:
Domain provisioning and WHOIS will be unavailable. Domains will continue to resolve normally.
.BIZ, .CN, .TEL, .TV
There is a 4-hour maintenance window scheduled for .BIZ, .CN, .TEL, and .TV services by the Registry on Saturday, June 6, 2009.
Date: Saturday, June 6, 2009 Time: 13:00 – 15:00 UTC Your Local Time:Start to End
Service Impact:
Domain provisioning will be unavailable. Domains will continue to resolve normally and WHOIS will remain available throughout the 2-hour window.
Starting on June 1st, and continuing through until the end of July, both .US and .ORG domain names are on sale!
.US domains will be just $3 which is 70% off the usual price. This promo lines up perfectly with the 4th of July and the U.S. Independence Day celebrations. Take advantage and offer .US domains to your customers as a way to show their patriotism.
.ORG domains will also be on sale at a Registry cost of $5.50. Remember that .ORG are sold under our cost-plus model, meaning you’ll need to add your management fee and the ICANN fee. The regular Registry cost for .ORG domains is $6.75.
EurID, the .EU (European Union) Registry operator, just 
Worldwide, .CN (China) and .DE (Germany) continue to battle it out for top spot amongst ccTLDs. .DE recently retook the lead from .CN. Rounding out the top five according to the 
Extended Validation (EV) SSL Certificates for $199? Yes, you heard correctly.
There’s a huge opportunity here to bring EV certs to your customers at a price that is not much more than a standard, non-EV cert. It’s also a great time for you to add the green bar to your own website and lead by example.
For some of us, including myself, it’s a first direct exposure to the workings of ICANN. I’ve peeked in via the Internet during a couple of the big 
For those who missed the webinar, we had intended to record and archive it for viewing, but thanks to a technical snafu, that recording failed, which absolutely stinks because it was probably the greatest webinar ever given (well, maybe not the greatest). My deepest apologies to those who were counting on that archive.
With this new release, it will be easy to add MX Records and to offer .TEL domain owners the ability to use their .TEL domains as email addresses.
Also of note is the release of a new .TEL app for the iPhone called Superbook. Users of Apple’s popular phone and mobile Internet device can grab the app for free from the 