From May 28 to 30, St Petersburg hosted the 43rd Russian National Forum of Web Hosting Providers, Registrars, and Data Center Operators, HostObzor. The Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ served as a co-organizer and general partner of the forum. A domain section was featured at the event, and, adhering to a well-established tradition, participants celebrated the .РФ domain’s 16th birthday in 2026.
The primary focus of the domain section was the upcoming changes to the domain name registration system set to be implemented on September 1, 2026. Experts from the Coordination Center – Deputy Director Irina Daneliya, Head of the Registrar and User Relations Department Georgy Georgievsky, Manager of the Registrar and User Relations Department Yulia Demchenko, Deputy Head of Legal Natalya Kiseleva, and Data Analyst Evgeny Pankov – provided forum participants with a detailed overview of the legislative innovations and the activities of registries and registrars within national domain zones.
The changes pertain to regulatory documents – for example, the Domain Name Registration Rules for the Russian national domains .RU, .РФ, and .SU will now be approved by the Government of the Russian Federation, thereby elevating the document’s status. Additionally, the Rules for the Formation and Maintenance of Lists of Domain Name Registrars and Requirements for Russian Legal Entities Included Therein will be published shortly.
Speakers highlighted that the innovations affect all participants in the domain name registration process. Domain name administrators must possess a verified account on the Gosuslugi (Public Services) portal with up-to-date information. If the account is simplified or standard, verification is required. Moreover, it is essential that the identification data in the personal account on the registrar’s website and on the Gosuslugi portal match, and that the phone number and email address provided in the personal account on the registrar’s website are accessible and current. For legal entities, it is crucial to designate a responsible employee and conduct a domain audit: verify who is listed as the administrator for each corporate domain name and which registrar they use.
Domain name registrars must ensure that their information system is connected to the USIA (Unified System of Identification and Authentication) by September 1, and submit a timely application for inclusion in the List of Registrars.
Coordination Center experts particularly stressed that the mandatory identification of all domain administrators via the USIA (Gosuslugi portal) will significantly complicate the mass registration of phishing domains using dummy individuals, substantially reduce the number of fake websites mimicking government agencies, banks, and online marketplaces, and elevate the level of intellectual property protection within the domain name space. This process mitigates legal risks and enhances the overall security of the national domain zone, which will ultimately be purged of malicious domains. Consequently, trust in national top-level domains will rise, they will become “verified,” thus bolstering the reputation of the Runet in general, including in terms of international perception.
Irina Haaze (ElasticHosting) and Andrey Kuzmichev (Runiti) shared their experiences of connecting to ESIA. Andrey Kuzmichev presented identification statistics for administrators via ESIA within the Runiti group as of May 25: 172,000 administrators and 690,000 domains. The head of the Runiti group also discussed how the legislative amendments will impact hosting providers and proposed various solutions to this challenge, ranging from cooperation to mergers.
The topic of hosting providers was further explored by TCI CEO Alexey Rogdev, and the segment on the forthcoming changes to the registration system was concluded by Yuri Kolotayev, Senior Lecturer at the School of International Relations, St Petersburg State University.
The second equally significant topic discussed during the domain section was the current level of support for Cyrillic domains and email on the internet. Coordination Center Infrastructure Consultant Vadim Mikhailov presented the results of a study on support for internationalized email addresses by mail servers in the .РФ and .RU zones. He noted that support for the SMTPUTF8 extension by servers in the .RU/.РФ zones is currently growing, as is the number of mail servers using Exim, an open-source mail software application. Coordination Center experts are working to improve the research methodology and refine data collection solutions.
The domain section concluded with a presentation by Maria Kolesnikova, Chief Analyst at the Coordination Center, who discussed how registrars and hosting providers can help advance Universal Acceptance. She suggested that registrars and providers undertake a number of simple actions that could significantly enhance the state of Universal Acceptance adoption within the Runet. Registrars are advised to verify their domain name suggestion services for the correct display of non-Latin characters in the search bar. It would also be beneficial to expand their knowledge base with information about Universal Acceptance and Cyrillic domains, describe settings for Cyrillic email, add mentions of Cyrillic email in the description of control panels and CMS platforms, and use examples with Cyrillic domain names in the Questions and Answers section. The Поддерживаю.РФ project can assist providers and hosting companies with all of these tasks.
At the end of the domain section, a quiz on email addresses was held. Participants tested their intuition and sharpened their eye for email standards – from basic syntax to tricky exceptions. The winners received commemorative prizes.
