The panel session, Domain Trends in Russia and the World, took place on April 20 at Hall No. 3 at the RIF+KIB Internet forum. The session featured the latest news about the new top-level domain names, speeches by experts in the secondary domain market, who spoke about differences between TLS and SSL, and news about the introduction of Cyrillic email.
Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ Andrey Vorobyev spoke about the state of and development prospects for the Russian domain name market, focusing on the introduction of Cyrillic email in the .РФ domain. “The process is slow, much slower than we would like. I think that international organizations such as ICANN, APTLD and others should be driving the introduction of IDN email. In fact, we need administrative lobbying on the international level to speed up the process,” Vorobyev said.
The Technical Center of Internet presented two reports. Igor Lidin spoke about the introduction of Cyrillic email. “I’m sure that the future of the internet lies in full support for non-Latin characters on all internet services,” he said. “Last time, when I spoke about email in the .РФ domain, I said that the introduction of non-Latin email standard was at the stage of a foundation pit. And today I can say the foundation has been already built.”
Alexander Venedyukhin spoke about the development of the TLS protocol. He said that the current growth rate of TLS use suggests that in 2–3 years, the secured protocol will be used by 100 percent of websites. “No other modern technology is witnessing such growth as TLS. It is not only about encryption; it preserves information integrity, and this explains its quick distribution everywhere,” the expert said.
New top-level domain names were another focus of discussion. Dmitry Deniskin from REG.RU and Andrei Kuzmichev from RU-CENTER spoke about this issue, saying that many national registries are complaining about new TLDs: they believe that they are to blame for the slowed or even zero growth of many national domains. Dmitry Deniskin said that this negative trend can be explained above all by stricter regulations of national domains as compared to the new ones. “It is easier for users to register a new name in a domain where there are few limitations and requirements to an administrator. And, of course, it is much easier to pick a domain name in new domains. Also, some new gTLDs offer free or discounted registration. All this, of course, impacts the domain market,” Deniskin said.
Andrei Kuzmichev added that development prospects for new domains did not differ much from traditional ones, for instance, the renewal percentage of domain names in new gTLDs is practically the same as in traditional domain zones.
The third important issue addressed by the session was the Russian secondary domain name market. Ilya Poyarkov from Ateks spoke in detail about the current processes on the secondary market, the key players and the market turnover. According to Poyarkov, the monthly turnover is about 5 million rubles. Every month there are 6,000–7,000 available domain names in .RU and .РФ appearing on the market, and there are seven key players. Poyarkov also spoke about a platform aggregator that simplifies and makes the purchase of domain names on the secondary market cheaper.
Reputed domain investor Pavel Gross (DomainParking.ru) also spoke about the secondary market. In his opinion, the market in Russia is quite small, and the turnover has dropped a lot in the past two years. The main drivers of the market are domain investors who purchase interesting domain names from each other. “But the curious thing is that everybody considers domain investors cyber squatters, and I can even agree to some extent. But for me, this word is not a negative term, for cyber squatters stoke interest in domains and thus contribute to the development of the domain market,” Gross said.
“The session was attended mostly by domain market professionals who represent accredited registrars, their partners and resellers. So we had the chance to discuss many topical issues of our industry, and hear the opinions of people who work “on the ground” every day. Some of the remarks gave us serious food for thought, and we will analyze the information received,” said Andrey Vorobyev following the session.
