On February 23-24, Dubai hosts the 81st Asia Pacific Top Level Domain Association (APTLD) Conference. For the first time in 2 years, the event was held not only online, but also offline – more than 40 representatives of the national registries of the Asia-Pacific Region have come to Dubai.
The section with the news of the registries, which are also the members of the association turned out to be rich. Yevgeny Kuskevich, a representative of the .SU domain registry, made an overview report in the section. Recently RIPN (registry of the .SU domain) became an associate member of APTLD, so Evgeny's speech aroused great interest among the conference participants. Evgeniy described the history of the emergence and development of the .SU domain and noted that at present .SU, along with .RU and .РФ, is one of the Russian national domain zones.
Maria Kolesnikova, Chief Analyst of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, has become the moderator of the session dedicated to Universal Acceptance (UA). Participants discussed what place UA took in the business strategies of national registries and who was the main driver of UA promotion at the local level.
APTLD and ICANN have developed a core document on the role of ccTLD registries in the implementation of Universal Acceptance in 2021. The document provides practical guidance for ccTLD registries on how to prepare and promote UA in their regions. At the session, speakers representing ccTLD registries from Egypt, Thailand, India, Laos, China, and Georgia considered the real possibilities of applying such recommendations, presented unique case studies on the implementation of Universal Acceptance in their countries, assessed the current level of UA support and growth points.
In addition, the plans of participants of the CIS and Eastern Europe Local Initiative for Universal Acceptance to continue the work of APTLD and ICANN to study the role of national registries in achieving Universal Acceptance and to conduct a study of the software used by national registries, was announced in the session.
“We want to take a deeper dive into the software that ccTLD registries use and test its readiness for Universal Acceptance. And this study will become a new stage of work in this direction,” Maria Kolesnikova added.
The marketing section focused on national registries' efforts to ensure registrar competition in the market consolidation era and to support smaller companies when only big players are around. Georgy Georgievsky, Head of the .RU/.РФ Registrars and Users Department, took part in the section. He discussed the training sessions for registrars that the Coordination Center regularly conducts. According to the speaker, such trainings give registrars working tools to increase sales and effective marketing.
The key point in conducting such trainings is their adaptation to the problems of the domain market and taking into account the specifics of the industry and the main activities of registrars: sales, marketing, legal and financial support
“We are trying to establish not only the business of individual domain registrars but also their work as a whole. If things are going well, for example, in hosting or web services, then domains will be registered or renewed more often. And, in the end, it makes our ccTLDs much better,” noted Georgy Georgievsky.
The Asia Pacific Top Level Domains Association (APTLD) is an association of national registries in the Asian region. APTLD operates as a forum for the exchange of information relating to the technological and operational issues of domain name registration. APTLD represents the interests of national registries in the region in interaction with international organizations that coordinate the use and development of the Internet, as well as in global Internet policy development processes. The Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ has been a member of APTLD since 2010.
