Brazil, one of the largest in terms of both territory and population, has lost its only accredited domain registrar. This has happened after the contact between ICANN corporation and Brazilian company Universo Online (UOL) was terminated. There has been no information about violations of contractual obligations by UOL; therefore we assume that termination of the contract was done by the initiative of the company itself.
UOL is the largest Internet company in Brazil; its web resources on Brazilian segment of the global Internet are behind by popularity only after such giants as Google or Facebook. However, being a registrar obviously wasn’t a priority for the company. The number of registered domain names through it for the last five years didn't exceed 200 thousand and at the moment has shrank to approximately 100 thousand. According to Domain Incite, these names will be transferred to Tucows. Thus, Brazil will become the only large country in the world that doesn't have its own accredited domain registrar.
