The regional Public Center for Internet Technologies (ROCIT) has analyzed the prices for domain name registration and extension for end users and found that different registrars may have completely different prices for these services, which causes confusion for some users.
“To date, there are 35 accredited registrars, each with its own business model. To my mind, none of the price offers breaks the principles of fair competition. Users have a choice: to wait for a special offer or to choose the lowest available price to register a domain, to choose a trusted registrar or receive additional services, such as hosting, which some registrars offer in the package with a domain name,” Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ Andrey Vorobyev said.
Competition depends primarily on the number of market participants, and in Russia, this figure is not that high. On average, 148,000 domain names accrue to one registrar (to compare: in most national domains, this figure does not exceed 15,000). However, 2015 showed a steady downward trend in the number of domain names per registrar, by 21,000 over the year. The number of registrars in 2015 grew by five, two of which are regional registrars, from Novosibirsk and Kaliningrad. The regional program to attract companies to the registration business will continue to develop.
A lot is being done to develop the registration market and competition. The Coordination Center, together with the technical Center of Internet, offers the Online Registrar service to small companies that plan to run registration business but do not need their own infrastructure. In addition, special promotions are held and new service packages are developed for registrars, which allow them cut prices for users and attract new people to the development of the Russian Internet.
“The monitoring of prices for domain name registration and extension in .RU and .РФ is useful for us as a registry, for registrars and end users. Customers will be able to quickly make a final choice, and registrars will have an incentive to develop new services for existing and potential customers,” Vorobyev said.
“ROCIT cares about users and supports fair pricing in .RU and .РФ. Our task is to inform customers about all the latest developments in this field,” ROCIT Director Sergei Grebennikov said, commenting on the monitoring data. He also said that ROCIT plans to collect and publish this information in the future.
