We regret to inform you that CNNIC has announced an indefinite suspension of all .CN registrations from overseas Registrars, including our registration provider Neustar.

As a result of this action by CNNIC, we have no choice but to suspend new .CN registrations through OpenSRS. We are in the process of disabling new registrations and we expect to have suspended registrations by end of day today, Tuesday, January 5th, 2009 (EST).

Please note that renewals and transfers will continue to be supported. Availability checks for .CN domains via the API and Reseller Web Interface will continue to work, however, orders for new .CN domains will fail.

CNNIC says the suspension will allow them to implement a better methodology to verify registrant information from overseas registrations. You will remember that in mid-December, CNNIC put into place new requirements for supporting documentation required to be submitted with new registrations.

There is no timetable for the resumption of new registrations. We’ll keep you posted as new information becomes available.

Last week, CNNIC, the Registry operator for the .CN domain extension, unexpectedly set out new rules surrounding the registration of .CN domains.

Since that announcement, we’ve been working with Neustar, our .CN registration partner, to determine the exact impact that these new policies will have on .CN registrations through OpenSRS.

The news is not especially positive.

These new policies, as set out by CNNIC, have a direct, negative impact on the viability of continuing to offer .CN domain registrations through OpenSRS. If you are selling .CN domains through OpenSRS, please stay tuned over the coming weeks as we address the business impact and make further determinations about how we plan to address continued support of .CN domains.

New Policy Details

Beginning December 21, 2009, all new .CN domain registrations will require the submission of additional paperwork to CNNIC in order to ensure that the registration is completed. The full text of the new requirements is available at: http://cnnic.cn/html/Dir/2009/12/12/5750.htm

In summary:

• Documentation for new registrations is now required to be submitted, by email or fax, directly to CNNIC. Do not forward documentation to Tucows/OpenSRS. Complete information about what is required along with documents for download can be found at http://opensrs.com/resources/domains/policies/#cn
• Failure to submit the required documentation within five (5) calendar days of the registration will result in the domain being deleted.
• New domain registrations will not appear in WHOIS or begin to resolve until the audit of the documentation has been completed by CNNIC. That process could take up to three (3) days from when the documents are received.
• Currently there is no process to track the progress of the audit process.
• Any .CN Registrations that fail due to incomplete documentation will be refunded monthly by OpenSRS.
• Renewals are NOT affected.

We recognize the significant impact this will have on .CN domain registrations. We continue to support .CN registrations through OpenSRS, with the understanding that the onus is on the Reseller to ensure that the proper documentation is submitted directly to CNNIC.

Over the weekend, CNNIC (the Chinese Internet Network Information Center which controls the .CN domain) made an announcement that it is implementing a new policy beginning today, December 14th, 2009, that affects all new .CN registrations.

Under the new policy, individuals are effectively barred from registering .CN domain names as CNNIC now requires a paper application which includes a business seal, company business license (photocopy), and registrant ID (photocopy).

More information:

• China Global Times article
• CircleID post

At this time, we are working with Neustar, our registration provider for .CN domains, to determine the exact details of the new policy. It is not yet known what impact this new policy will have on .CN registrations.

For the time being, we continue to process registrations as usual.

We will update the Reseller Blog with further information as we receive it.

.EU is the latest ccTLD to announce that they are adding support for Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) registrations.

IDN support in .EU domains goes live on December 10th, 2009 at 10:00 UTC (view the time in your timezone). At that time, something of a landrush will occur as .EU IDN domains will become available on a first come, first served basis. Prior to that time, OpenSRS Resellers can create pending orders in OpenSRS. As soon as our Registry connection is re-enabled after .EU IDN support goes live at the Registry, we’ll begin attempting to register pre-orders as quickly as possible.

IDNs are domain names that contain non-ASCII characters. Generally, these are non-English domain names. For example, the Swedish å, the German ü, the Romanian ș and characters from the Bulgarian and Greek alphabets as a whole. It’s important to note that these IDN domains are so-called, “before the dot” registrations. That is, the IDN characters are restricted to the part of the domain that is before the dot – the “example” part of example.eu – as opposed to having a non-English version of the part after the dot – the “eu” extension itself.

Given the wide range of languages spoken throughout the European Union, it makes a lot of sense for .EU to offer IDNs and it’s expected that demand for IDN EU domains will be strong.

EURID has put together a fairly extensive information portal for the IDN launch. You’ll find information about which languages and characters are supported, as well a list of frequently asked questions about .EU IDN registrations.

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.

The OpenSRS domains wholesale pricing chart has been updated with the costs for the new extensions.

And on a related note:

• .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.