The comparison looked at the Alexa 1 Million and counted publically facing SSL certificates. They found over 35,000 GeoTrust SSL certificates amongst the 165,000 total certificates found. GeoTrust led all certificate authorities, with the nearest competitor alomost 10,000 certificates behind.

GeoTrust points to the data as proof that more users look to GeoTrust as the low-cost SSL certificate provider of choice to secure and encrypt data transmitted over the Internet.

With increasing competition in the low-end of the SSL market, GeoTrust continues to provide cost-effective solutions for a variety of different requirements. From QuickSSL, through True BusinessID with or without Extended Validation, there is a GeoTrust-branded certificate to satisfy any buyer.

If you have an OpenSRS Reseller account, then you are also automatically able to sell SSL certificates from GeoTrust (and also thawte and VeriSign). For more information visit our GeoTrust SSL information page.

Public Internet Registry (PIR), the operator of the .org domain extension released the report, which showed 7.6% growth in the .org domain in the first half of 2010. That’s twice the growth compared to 2009 and signals continued strength in the .org extension.

Some other figures of interest:

• The growth of .org in the first half of 2010 outpaced both .com and .net over the same period.
• New creates for .org showed 16.5% growth, on par with both .com and .net.
• 77.1% of organizations renewed their .org domains for one to three years, an increase of 4% over 2009.
• North America and the European Union continued to represent the regions with the most .org registrations. China showed growth of 4% in the first half of 2010.

With over 8.5 million .org domains registered, .org is the third largest generic top-level domain (gTLD), behind .com and .net.

You can always download the latest version of the “The Dashboard” from PIR’s website at http://pir.org/news/dashboard

Given .EU’s importance to us, I was very pleased to be appointed the North American representative to the registry’s Registrar Advisory Board earlier this year. EURid, the .EU registry operator, convenes a meeting of the Board three times a year to gather feedback from the registrar community. Discussion topics range from key registry performance metrics to upcoming features and releases, and can also involve a great deal of back and forth between attendees about the registry’s direction.

Overall, the discussions generally stay within the Board’s mandated scope, which is to (and I will borrow directly from the registry here):

• Advise the EURid Board on issues where the EURid Board might need to consult the registrar community;
• Consider and bring to the attention of the EURid Board any policy or operational issue that might be of future importance or affect the .EU domain space;
• Submit input to the long-term strategies;
• Channel the feedback of the larger stakeholder community into EURid;
• Help strengthen relationships with the registrar community;
• Support EURid in its interactions with other stakeholders.

As a representative of a registrar with a particularly unique business model, I try to keep my eyes and ears open for issues and topics that could have a particular impact on resellers. The Board, which is comprised largely of retail-focused registrars, can sometimes get deeply involved in discussions and suggestions that don’t necessarily fit well with reseller-focused business models. As such, I always try to make sure our view is heard.

To EurID’s credit, they could simply ignore the Board and its input, and continue operating the registry as they see fit. However, EURid staff and management are actively involved with the Board, and are constantly soliciting feedback. This is something few of the registries that registrars work with do on a regular basis.

Although I’m only a few months into a three-year mandate, I have found the experience thus far extremely valuable and rewarding. I look forward to continuing to help shape policy for one of the world’s largest ccTLDs in the future.

On Your Site

The easiest thing you can do is add some messaging to your homepage (or the beginning of your domain search path) to let users know that .CO domain names are now available through your service. But success will mostly likely be driven by how you integrate .CO into your search results. Customers in the online world are a finicky bunch. Button placement, colors, menus and user interface all play a critical role in determining how much of a consumer’s hard-earned money you will earn. We mocked up a sample search result page to give you an idea where we think you could see results.

Identify .CO domain names as “NEW.” It may also be wise to have a help button a registrant can click on in order to learn about .CO and why it’s a great choice for their business. They key is to reinforce (.com-like) universality and credibility.

Place available .CO domain names at or near the top to grab a registrant’s attention and encourage them to act. (It is actually always a good rule to give better real estate to results that are available than result that are not.) If .CO is buried too low or even behind a “more options” link,  the customer might never even consider it.

Suggest a two year registration. (This is actually a suggestion for all domain names.) When the default is one year, most customers will register for one year. When the default is two, it is surprising how many customers will register for two years. So, a good suggestion might be to start with a two year offer (perhaps with a discount), but make sure it is very clear how to change the term to one year.

In Other Communications

Besides having your front-end tuned to convert, another important step is to communicate the .CO news directly to your customers. An effective way to do this is through an opt-in email marketing campaign. Assuming you have an email list of customers, here are some suggestions that have produced results for our resellers in past TLD launches:

• Don’t assume your customers know about .CO. Sending a simple email about the availability of this new TLD could be enough to drive additional business.

• You could perform a batch check on your customers’ current domains and see which .CO equivalents are available. Many customers will want to protect their name across all generic TLDs. For example: “Dear customer, we notice that you have companyxyz.com…we want to advise you that companyxyz.co is now also available….”

• If you have the data, you can also look through past unsuccessful domain searches and reach out to customers where the exact-match .CO domain is now available.

• In your marketing messages, it might be worthwhile to note that Google (and presumably other search engines) will be treating .CO domain names as generic TLDs. (This addresses fears that a .CO name will only get SEO results in Colombia!). You might also mention that the .CO registry is spending significant marketing dollars to make sure Internet users (your customers’ visitors) will know and respect .CO when they see it.

We will continue to monitor what folks are doing and what seems to be working to share with the network.

Please let us know if you have ideas or questions.

• Download the full list (PDF 250kB)

These domains are available for registration right now in the Landrush phase. If you had previously put in applications for Landrush domains only to find them unavailable, you may wish to re-submit the order as the name in question might be on the list of newly available domains.

Landrush Extended

Landrush was extended by the registry and will now close on Friday, July 16th at noon EDT. Landrush is open to everyone – there is a $5.00 non-refundable registration fee, and successful Landrush orders are $220 which includes the first year of registration (all costs shown are in US dollars). In the event that there are multiple applications for the same domain, that domain will go into an auction process where those who had submitted an application for the domain in question will be able to bid against each other for the rights to the domain.

General Availability starts July 20

As mentioned, .CO goes into General Availability on July 20th at 2:00pm EDT. OpenSRS is taking pre-orders for General Availability now and on launch day we’ll be attempting to register as many of those pre-orders as we possibly can on launch day.

For General Availability pre-orders, there are no fees other than the regular $25 one-year registration fee. If the order is successful on launch day, the domain is awarded and your account is charged. If the order isn’t successful, you aren’t charged anything.

Is your Reseller account funded?

For those with General Availability pre-orders in the queue, we will be putting the $25 registration fee for each pre-order on hold this week to ensure that the required funds are available at the time of attempted registration on July 20, 2010. If the registration is successful, you’ll be charged for the registration. If the order is unsuccessful, the hold on the funds will be released and you’ll be charged nothing.

Please ensure that you have adequate funds in your account to cover the full value of the domains you have on pre-order.

More Information

Be sure to visit our .CO launch page where you will find more information about the .CO launch, including a package of marketing materials you can use in your promotion of the .CO extension. You might also want to check out the .CO webinar archive if you didn’t attend, or haven’t seen it yet. And the CO Internet website is also a good source of up-to-date launch information as well.

You can also learn more information (including webinars, launch dates, etc) on our .CO information page.

Now that’s not to say that people won’t be lining up to get their preferred .CO domain during the Landrush phase – demand for .CO domains has been quite strong. Rather, it’s a way of saying that Landrush orders aren’t approved on a first-come, first-served basis. Instead, multiple Landrush orders for the same domain will result in the domain going to an auction in which all those who applied for the domain during the Landrush period are able to bid.

You can submit Landrush orders through OpenSRS and we’ll continue to accept them through the end of the Landrush period on July 13th, 2010.

General Availability is just around the corner

What will be a rush is General Availability (GA), which happens on July 20th, 2010. On that day, it’s a real free-for-all as registration officially opens to everyone at the regular price and whoever gets the application in first gets the domain. We’ll have more information about what we’re doing for General Availability shortly, but in the meantime, OpenSRS is already accepting pre-orders via the Reseller Web Interface (RWI) and the API.

As always, the .CO Launch Page is updated with all the information about the launch of .CO.

VeriSign, GeoTrust and Thawte are all in the midst of a transition from 1024-bit roots to new, more secure 2048-bit roots. This change is in line with industry best practices to ensure the highest level of security. Browser vendors are also starting to require the use of SHA-1 and 2048 keys. For example, Microsoft has stipulated requirements for all Certificates that require that all new Root Certificates must have a minimum be 2048-bit RSA keys and not use MD5 as the hashing algorithm.

As a result of this upgrade, there are some changes to how SSL certificates purchased through OpenSRS are ordered and installed. Please note: currently installed SSL certificates are not affected by the changes. However, new certificates along with renewals of existing certificates will required 2048-bit Certificate Signing Requests (CSRs) in the future, depending on the specific certificate brand and type.

The new 2048-bit root updates will go live on the following dates:

• Thawte (except SGC SuperCerts) – June 27, 2010
• GeoTrust – July 22, 2010
• VeriSign – October, 2010
• Thawte SGC SuperCerts only – October, 2010

2048-bit CSRs Please

OpenSRS will begin requiring 2048-bit CSRs at the same time as the root updates occur. You may already submit 2048-bit CSRs for all products. In fact, Extended Validation (EV) certificates already required 2048-bit CSRs. If you submit an SSL order with a 1024-bit CSR after the root updates take place on the dates listed above, the order will fail.

Installation Changes Required

Additionally, the SSL certificate installation process will change for all Thawte (excluding: SGC SuperCerts and Web Server with EV Certificates) and GeoTrust certificates (excluding True BusinessID with EV) issued after the go live dates listed above. Users will be required to install an intermediate Certification Authority Certificate in line with industry best practices. The excluded products listed already require the installation of this intermediate certificate.

More Information

For the latest information about the 2048-bit root changes, you may wish to view the Support Advisories issued by each brand:

• Thawte Support Advisory: view
• GeoTrust Support Advisory: view
• VeriSign Support Advisory: view

With just over a month to go until .co officially launches with the General Availability phase, we’re continuing to see a lot of buzz building around the new domain extension.

We’re nearing the end of the Sunrise phases of the launch where trademark holders get first dibs on .co domains that match their existing trademarks. Later this month, things really begin to heat up as the Landrush phase starts on June 21.

For many, Landrush will be the first chance for many to get their hands on some great .co domains. And as exciting as Landrush will be, General Availability will really ramp things up with a first-come, first-served registration blitz when the .co Registry officially opens for business on July 20.

e.co Auction

While t.co is generating some significant buzz around the tech community, another .co domain is also grabbing headlines. Between June 7 and June 10, .co is auctioning off another single character .co domain – e.co.

With bidding set to close tomorrow, the current price for e.co is already up over $30,000 and continuing to climb.

Proceeds from the auction of e.co go to the winner’s charity of choice which makes the whole thing even more of a win for all involved.

Are you selling .co?

OpenSRS is fully supporting the launch of .co as one of ten .co accredited registrars. We’re continuing to take Global Sunrise orders at the moment and we’ll be switching on both Landrush and General Availability pre-orders in the coming weeks.

If you haven’t yet started marketing and selling .co domains, it’s not too late. Awareness amongst the general public continues to build and CO Internet SAS continues to do a great job building buzz around the new extension. With General Availability coming next month, demand for .co domains amongst the general public should continue to swell.

If you are looking for more information on the launch of .co, we have a special page setup for you. All the information around dates, phases and pricing is there. And you can download a full package of .co marketing materials including web copy, flash banners and other images and graphics you can use to highlight your participation in the launch of .co.

VeriSign visited our Toronto offices a few weeks back to give Elliot the opportunity to talk about how the Internet has impacted his life, and about where he sees things heading in the future:

The Internet is people

Look back all the way back to 1994, when Tucows.com software library launched in Flint, Michigan, you’ll see that there was a focus within Tucows around the idea that the Internet is made up not of wires and routers, but of people.

Tucows.com used a network of thousands and thousands of mirrors – mostly Internet Service Providers – who provided a local copy of the Tucows software library to their customers as an additional feature on top of an Internet connection. In 1999 Tucows extended this network of relationships by adding domain name registrations to the mix through OpenSRS. We leveraged the existing relationships that we had in the Tucows network to build out a global network of domain sellers who used the OpenSRS backend to power sales and management of domain names to their customers.

These days much is made of Web 2.0 and the social qualities of the Internet. But the truth is that the Internet has always been a synergy of technology and people. Without the physical interconnections, the Internet wouldn’t exist and conversely, without the Internet, many of these social connections wouldn’t be possible.

What was originally a way to connect computer networks to computer networks quickly morphed into a way to interconnect the billions of people on planet earth with each other at the speed of light. Mobile, ubiquitous Internet access leads to a more social Internet which empowers people through the Internet.

This generation of kids who grew up with the Internet have come to expect to be able to access it on demand, wherever they might be. They forge relationships with each other via the web, they communicate via the web and they seem to be constantly connected to each other via the web.

Much thanks goes to VeriSign for putting together the 25YearsOf.com initiative. We’re honoured to be recognized as part of this select group of Pioneers. It’s a testament to vision that both Elliot and Tucows as a whole share–that the Internet is more than a vast physical network but that it is an extension, and an extender of social interactions between people that makes the world wide web so incredible and powerful.

How do you .com?

Along with the gala in San Francisco, VeriSign also announced a new contest, “How do you .com?,” which invites people to share their personal stories of how a .com website has changed their lives. The contest runs through August 31, 2010, and entrants’ stories will be voted on by the public as well as by a panel of judges notable in the Internet industry. The Grand Prize is $10,000, First Prize is $5,000, and Second Prize is $2,500. In addition, the contest will feature weekly drawings for an Apple iPad between June 21 and August 31. For more information about the contest go to http://www.howdoyou.com.

The contest provides a great way for you to extend the 25YearsOf.com celebration to your customers. Do make them aware of the contest and other happenings around 25YearsOf.com and encourage them to think about the impact that the Internet has had, and will have on their lives in the future.