Istituto diInformatica e

Telematica del CNR

.itREGISTRY•YEARBOOK2008

. i t R E G I S T R YY E A R B O O K 2 0 0 8

. i t R E G I S T R YY E A R B O O K 2 0 0 8

http://www.nic.it2

.it Registry Yearbook 2008is a supplement of

Focus .it - Newsletter del Registro del ccTLD .it

Chief EditorLuca Trombella

CoordinatorAnna Vaccarelli

LayoutGiuliano Kraft

PhotographsMaurizio Papucci, Giuliano Kraft

CoverGiuliano Kraft

EditorsBeatrice Lami, Francesca Nicolini

Printed byPacini Editore S.p.A.Via A. Gherardesca56121 Ospedaletto (PI)

ManagementUnità relazioni esterne del Registro del ccTLD .itVia G. Moruzzi, 1I-56124 Pisatel. +39 050 313 98 11fax +39 050 315 27 13e-mail: newsletter@nic.itwebsite: http://www.nic.it/

Head of the ccTLD .it RegistryDott. Domenico Laforenza

Registration at Courts of Pisan° 17/06, 21 July 2006

Printed on organic paper

Sent to the press16 March 2009

a domain for everyone

the Registry of the ccTLD .it

some history

2008 highlights

.it and the main European ccTLDs

maintainers

operations• registrations• cancellations• modifi cations

systems• das• whois autenticated• whois

oppositions• trends• reassignments

external relations• helpdesk• email• training

3

456

812

20

24

28

conte

nts

8

.it Registry Yearbook 2008 3

With a net growth of more than 144,000 do-main names compared to the previous year, 2008 confi rmed once again the good state of health of the Italian domain market. Although the economic crisis affected the Italian and European Information and Communication Technology sectors, which for the fi rst time since their beginnings recorded negative in-dicators, the fi eld of domain names continues to give signs of dynamism. This is proved not only by the number of new monthly registra-tions (which has never been so high), but also by the increase in cancellations and the high numbers of domains that were cancelled and then immediately reassigned.While we wait and see whether these trends are going to last, the Registry of the ccTLD .it shall continue on the road that has been mapped out. Innovation and transparency

a domain for everyone

are the lowest common denominator of all the ventures that we intend to embark on to improve the quality of the service and to fur-ther widen the user base of Italian domains. This will begin with the imminent introduction of the “synchronous” registration system and the accompanying communication campaign which should contribute to the development of a sector that we consider to be fundamen-tal for the Italian economy.Through these ventures, the Registry intends to play an active role in reducing the digital divide. In fact the distribution of domain na-mes is one of the main indicators of the de-velopment of information technologies and of communication over the diverse geographi-cal areas of Italy. And this development has a very clear impact on the economic and so-cial fabric.

Domenico LaforenzaDirector of the Institute for Informatics and Telematics of the Italian National Research Council

http://www.nic.it4

the Registry of the ccTLD .it

The Registry of the ccTLD .it is responsible for assigning and managing .it domains. This service has been operating within the IIT of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) since December 1987, with the birth of cnr.it - the very fi rst domain in the Italian network. The Registry is responsible for all the activities related to registering and maintaining .it do-mains. The Registry was authorized to carry out this role by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which has now become ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and which has historically been responsible for assigning IP addresses on an international basis, and for managing DNSs. Assigning and maintaining .it domains is both national and European. We work in direct contact with around 2500 Italian and foreign operators that have contracts with us (the so-called maintainers) and there are more than 1,600,000 active domains. We give direct support to over 800,000 .it domain name assignors.Any citizen over the age of 18 in the European Union can register a .it domain. The norms are covered in the Regulations of assigning and managing domain names, and are subject to periodic revisions by the Registry itself and by the Rules Committee. This committee is responsible for drafting the rules and technical procedures for assigning and managing domain names in the ccTLD .it. All variations, both in terms of regulations and procedures, are as a concerted effort among the various parties and this facilitates free competition amongst those working in this fi eld. The Registry works closely alongside government departments, particularly with the Italian Ministry of Economic Development overseeing domain name registration in relation to Italian law (art. 15, clause 1 of the Code of Electronic Communication), and is the Gua-rantor for the protection of personal data in order to ensure harmonious management and useful interchange.

Aside from the technical and systems innova-tions, the Registry will also be offering main-tainers all the tools that will allow them to effi -ciently plan their activities.Compared to previous editions, this year-book gives some new information which we believe will be useful for those involved in do-mains in order to get a feeling of where the market is going. This is another step forward in our mission to create a close relationship between the Registry and companies, in a reciprocal respect for our relative roles and without any overlap.This does not merely respect our duty to be transparent, but we hope this will be a useful working tool for those working everyday in the fi eld of domains and who will be able to exploit some very powerful statistics.Our Registry still works within the Italian Na-tional Research Council (CNR) - this is a uni-que situation which inevitably has its pros and cons. While there are the usual constraints

deriving from being within a public institute, there are the huge benefi ts that the Registry gets from being within a working scientifi c research institute that is itself projected towar-ds the Internet of the future. The Institute for Informatics and Telematics of the CNR is, in this sense, a point of excellence in the pano-rama of Italian research. This is clearly de-monstrated by the scientifi c activity in relation to algorithms, high speed networks, mobility, pervasive computing, security and Web tech-nologies. But there are also new and promi-sing areas such as Internet governance - the backbone of the information highway of the future.Whatever direction the Registry follows in the near future, we will continue to be guided by fairness, transparency and equal opportuni-ties for access for all users - these features have always been a characteristic of the sy-stem of registering of Italian domains and are now the founding elements.

.it Registry Yearbook 2008 5

some history

Since its beginnings, the process of registering domain names under the .it country code toplevel domain has been a particular activity of the Italian National Research Council (CNR). In December 1987 with the birth of the fi rst domain name in the Italian network

(“cnr.it”), the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority recognised the ccTLD .it and as-signed the CNR with its management gi-ven the technical and scientifi c expertise of its researchers, who had been amongst the fi rst in Europe to adopt the IP protocol. The service of registe-ring and maintaining Italian domains was initially provided by the CNUCE institute of the CNR. In 1997 this role passed to another CNR institute

- the Institute for Telematic Applications (IAT), and then to IIT which was founded in 2002 from a merge between IAT and the Institute of Computational Mathematics. The diffusion of .it domain names has followed in parallel the more general development of the Internet in Italy. For the fi rst ten years the web was essentially used in academic and research circles, and domain registration was nothing more than a niche activity. With the explosion of the World Wide Web, which in Italy took place in the late 1990s, the process of registering .it domain names really took off. The Registry of the ccTLD .it has gradually enlarged its size to changing workloads and at the same time has adapted the regulation and technological tools to the chan-ging needs of the operators and the market. After the eli-mination of the limit to the number of do-mains that could be registered (in 2000 for companies, and in 2004 for private individuals), the rush for .it domain na-mes has progressed rapidly, with more than 20,000 new requests for registra-tion every month. Domenico Laforenza with Paul Twomey (left), President/CEO of ICANN

http://www.nic.it6

17 april

Call for tenders for a communication campaign for the Registry of the ccTLD .it to promote the culture of the Internet through .it domain names.

16 january

The new data transmission system comes into being and connects the head offi ce of the Registry of the ccTLD .it of Pisa to the offi ces of the Registry at MIX in Milan. At the same time and as a result of this new link, a new router was installed at MIX. The new circuit is based on SDH technology and has a transmission capacity of 100Mbit/s. It guarantees a higher quality service both in terms of reliability and greater capacity.

2008 highlights

9 june

The Registry increases the number of updates of the .it DNS zone and the DNS zones of geographical domain names from three to four a day: at 01.00, 08.00, 14.00 and 19.00. This update further decreases the time between registering a domain name in the Database and the domain going live.

.it Registry Yearbook 2008 7

1 july

As announced on many occasions, the Registry discontinues the secondary nameserver service on the dns2.nic.it and dns3.nic.it servers.

2-3 october

The Registry organizes the 37th General Assembly of CENTR (Council of European National Top Level Registries) in Viareggio. CENTR is an association that brings together the main European and International ccTLD registries.

27 november

In advance of the start of the synchronous registration of domain names, the Registry begins the EPP server test phase. Testing is open to all

maintainers.

22 december

Publication on RAIN of the asynchronous contract for 2009-2010.Along with the new contract, the ‘Norms of Good Conduct’ are published. These norms are aimed at achieving good practice in the management of domain names in the ccTLD .it, the ‘Confi dentiality Agreement between IIT-Registry and Maintainers” for access to data contained in the database of registered domain names. In addition, there are two technical schedules. The fi rst outlines the features of the service and explains how to access the “Authenticated Whois Service” and the security measures that the Maintainers must observe when using the Whois service. The second applies exclusively to Maintainer organizations that have offi ces in a non-EU country that the European Commission considers does not meet the norms required for data protection.

http://www.nic.it8

.it and the main European ccTLD

the maintainersThere are 2402 Maintainers holding active contracts with the Registry: of these, 2231

(92.88%) are Italian and 171 (7.12%) foreigners. Italian operators manage 94.19% of the total number of .it domains.

The table below shows the number of Italian Maintainers by macro-area: of the 92.88% of the total of Italian Maintainers, 56.58% have their registered offi ce in the north. But it

is central Italy which has the best average, with no less than 738,933 domains registered by “only” 499 Maintainers. Domains registered directly by the Registry were not included

- they are geographical and reserved.

Once again the Registry of the ccTLD .it was the fi fth in the ranking of country code top le-vel European domains in terms of active domains, and was only beaten by Germany (.de), the United Kingdom (.uk), The Netherlands (.nl) and Eurid (.eu).

.it Registry Yearbook 2008 9

the top 10 foreign maintainers

The top chart shows the breakdown by nationality of foreign Maintainer .it domains: at the top, confi rming a well established tradition, is Germany, followed by the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands. The chart in the centre of the page and in the table, the distri-

bution of .it domains registered by foreign Maintainers. Note that Luxembourg, with just one Maintainer, registered more domains than Germany which has 41.

MAINTAINERS

DOMAINS/MAINTAINERS

http://www.nic.it10

regional distribution of maintainers

The map and table show the distribution of regional Maintainers. In fi rst place is Lombardy: 26.49% of Italian Maintainers have their registered offi ce there. Then come Lazio (10.13%) and Emilia-Romagna (9.01%). The regions of Southern Italy are all below the tenth position, with the exception of Campania (seventh) and Sicily (eighth).

.it Registry Yearbook 2008 11

distribution of domains by region

Here are the data on the number of domains registered by the Italian Maintainers, by region. Tuscan operators have on average more domain names than those who are based in other

regions. Tuscany is followed Sardinia and Abruzzo.

http://www.nic.it12

oper

ations

.it Registry Yearbook 2008 13

operations

historical trend of domain namesin the Whois database

The graph shows the historical trend of do-main names in the Whois database. The number of registered domains saw a huge rise between 1999 and 2000: in this period the Registry of the ccTLD. carried out an initial liberalization of registration policies allowing individuals to register only one name domain and to all entities other than individuals to register an unlimited number - the only constraint being membership of one of the member countries of the European Union. In 2004 individuals were allowed to register more than one domain. In the last eight years the growth of the Whois databa-se has been constant, an increase of around 147,000 domain names per year.

New registrations on monthly basis

2008 saw a signifi cant peak in the number of new registrations: 303,757 in all, with a monthly average

of over 25,000 new domain names (23,000 in 2007). The peak was reached in May, when a record of more

than 30,000 domains were registered.

http://www.nic.it14

Comparison between new and failed registrations

The graph and table compare the number of Letters of Assumption of Responsibility (LARs) that led to the registration of a domain name and that of LARs that

were either incorrect or expired. Overall, the registry received 497,790 requests for registration: more than 300,000 of these were successful with the registration

of the name requested domain. Requests that were incorrect or expired amounted to 38.64% in terms

of incomplete LARs, fi lled in with errors, not aligned with the technical application form, or expired. The

latter case occurs when Maintainers do not send the electronic form on completion of registration or do not

respond in time to requests for the integration of the Registry. The total of incorrect LARs may have been

affected by inaccuracies in the compilation and pro-blems of transmission to the Registry.

operations

cancellations

A total of 159,153 domains were deleted from the registry of the ccTLD. it (101,764 in 2007). Given the 303,757 registrations of new domain names, the result is slightly more than 144,000 domain names. Almost all the domains (98%) were cancelled fol-lowing the ending date of no-provider and redemption-no-provider. The domains that were re-registered after having been deleted were 17,246, in line with that of the pre-vious year.

.it Registry Yearbook 2008 15

average registration times

The average time for registration is expressed in working days. Generally, requests for registration are processed within one working day of being received.

comparison between new registrations and cancellations

In view of the approximately 25,000 new domains registered each month, the Registry of the ccTLD. cancelled an average of about 13,000 domain names, on a monthly basis. The balance between domains recorded and cancelled was on the whole positive, with a peak recorded in April (+18,527 domains). The table in the centre of the page provides some additional data about cancelled and re-recorded domains: in 2008 3,037 do-main names were registered again within a week of their cancellation. 6,995 domains were re-registered within 15 days.

operations

http://www.nic.it16

registrant modifi cations

The Registry carried a total of 18,359 modifi cations of the registrant, the average monthly was 1,529 succes-sful operations, with a peak in March (2,726). Reque-sts for amendments of the registrant were signfi cantly higher than in the previous year, rising from 42,073 to 50,135. This operation continues, however, to record high rates of error: errors when compiling the form for the registrant modifi cation are in addition to issues already raised with respect to the Lar.

maintainer modifi cations

Given an average monthly number of more than 25,000 new registrations, the Registry received

109,884 requests for Maintainer modifi cation (more than 9,000 per month). A total of 68,274 modifi ca-tions were made, corresponding to 62% of requests

received.

operations

.it Registry Yearbook 2008 17

operations

simple modifi cations

Simple modifi cations allow Maintainers to modify some data in the DBNA (the database of assigned domain names) without sending any paper document. The average was almost constant throughout the year: the peaks in July and August were infl uenced by a technical problem of one individual Maintainer and are therefore not signifi cant. Simple modifi cations can be used to perform transactions such as the recovery of a domain name from the status of a no-provider, redemption no-provider, and re-demption-period. The table below shows some numerical references to these operations and a comparison with 2007.

types of registrants

Of the types of registrants of .it do-mains, government organizations (civil

service) and foreign entities showed a signifi cant step forward. The top

position remains fi rmly in the hands of companies, followed some way back

by private individuals, but the civil service has moved in a year from just under 17,000 to over 70,000, while

foreign entities have more than tripled (23,868 in 2007). Note that each re-gistrant may be assigned one or more

.it domain names.

http://www.nic.it18

comparison between new registrations, maintainer modifi cations and registrant

modifi cations

The graph and table summarize the trend of the three main operational activities that the Registry of the ccTLD .it is involved in. Only

successful operations are included here: new registrations (red line), Maintainer modifi cations (yellow line), and registrant modifi cations (green line). The workload was signifi cant, with a total

of over 394,000 operations (an average of 32,900 a month). May saw the maximum peak

of the year, with over 37,000 operations.

operations

.it Registry Yearbook 2008 19

requests by means of communications

In February 2008 the Registry installed a new fax line (0039 050 577639) for ap-plications for registration of domain names that have been cancelled for less than seven days. The line (indicated in the graph as “re-registration faxes”) was added to the existing four channels: “LAR faxes” (050 -- 542420), “modifi cation faxes“ (050-570230), “eLARs” and “traditional post”. Data for the “re-registration fax” are availa-ble for April onwards. Once again in 2008 the preferred method for sending requests was “LAR fax”, with a monthly average of over 45,000 documents, but there was an appreciable increase in the use of eLARs, i.e. the possibility for Maintainers to send letters assuming responsibility for their clients via email. In 2008 146,458 eLARs were recei-ved. Overall, the Registry received nearly 900,000 requests for operations on domain names.

operations

http://www.nic.it20

syst

ems

.it Registry Yearbook 2008 21

DAS (Domain Availability Services) allows users to check the availability of a domain name but, unlike Whois, it does not show the information on that particular domain and on its contacts, if registered. The service can be consulted on the das.nic.it server (port 4343) using the standard whois client, and it only tells the user whether the domain is “Available” or “Not Available”. The service is characterized by low bandwidth con-sumption, the rapidity of responses and for being, at least at currently, available without restriction. In 2008 the service proved to be the most used - for its speed and effi -ciency. In August, there was a peak of over 418,000,000 queries.

das

systems

http://www.nic.it22

The “Whois authenticated” service enables Main-tainers allow to carry out their modifi fcations effi -ciently as well as Registrant modifi cations regar-

ding a domain name and modifi cations of domain names and associated contacts. Maintainers can

view all the information about a domain name. To use the service Maintainers have to subscribe to a specifi c agreement, through which they are appointed as being responsible for data proces-sing. The service is provided on the whois-server

auth.nic.it (port 4300). Requests are allowed only using the domain name of interest as a search

key. Searches are not allowed for contacts. Main-tainers can make a maximum of 3000 queries in

24 hours. The service has been operative June 2007, and is being increasingly used.

whois authenticated

systems

.it Registry Yearbook 2008 23

The Whois service allows users to verify whether a domain name has been registered or not. If the domain has been registered, the query returns the information on the domain name sought, such as the authoritative nameservers, the assignee, the administrative contact, technical contacts and the Maintainer. As already mentioned, the DAS and Whois authenticated services have substantially reduced “standard” Whois requests. In 2007 the service had a monthly peak of 52 million queries, while in 2008 there were not even 15 million.

systems

whois

summary

http://www.nic.it24

opposi

tions

.it Registry Yearbook 2008 25

reasons for oppositions

The chart below highlights that the main reason (89%) for oppositions were due to confl icts relating to business distinguishing marks: trademark, company, and store signs.

trends

The graph for the oppositions raised during 2008 shows that the trend for oppositions procedures had a

peak between May and June - in fact these two months saw half the annual total of oppositions.

oppositions

http://www.nic.it26

reassignments

The chart and table show the reassignment procedures and how they are distributed amongst those who provide and extra-judicial dispute resolution service (PRSD). PRSDs were credited at different times and some of them arose from the previous experience of the Operating Body. Specifi cally, the credits occurred on the dates reported below:

CRDD 02 Apr 2007Arbitronline S.r.l. 29 Jun 2007MFSD 20 Jun 2007Tonucci & Partner 08 Jan 2008Camera Arbitrale 24 Jan 2008

oppositions

.it Registry Yearbook 2008 27

resolution of oppositions

The chart shows the reasons for resolution of oppositions. As can be seen, the highest per-centage comes from the withdrawal of opposition due to it not being renewed (28%) and

request for cancellations (28%).

oppositions

outcome of the reassignment

The data reported below are expressed both in absolute values and as a percentage and represent the decisions of the PRSD with regard to reassignment procedures. A comparison between 2008 and 2000-7 shows that the trend has remained substantially the same.

http://www.nic.it28

exte

rnal r

elations

.it Registry Yearbook 2008 29

external relations

helpdesk

The Registry of the ccTLD. It offers telephone support to both Maintainers and end users. The switchboard (based on VoIP technology) is confi gured to separate the “queues” according to the type of caller. All Maintainers have an authentication code that allows them to contact the Registry through a “fast track”, thus avoiding queuing with end users who are normally much more numerous. The statistics refers to calls where the Registry operators actually answered the call. In 2008 the number of calls handled was over 58,000 with an increase of more than 25% over the previous year.

http://www.nic.it30

Support requests emailed by users are managed through the Registry via the OTRS (Open source Ticket Request System). Each incoming message

is associated with a ticket and is sorted into “queues” that correspond to specifi c groups:

technical (helptech), operational (operations), administrative (administration), legal (disputes), organizational, training and external relations

(other events, courses, helpdesk and hostma-ster). In 2008, against the trend for the phone

helpdesk, the number of requests decreased by 35% compared to the previous year.

email

external relations

.it Registry Yearbook 2008 31

external relations

In 2008 the Registry of the ccTLD .it organized seven courses. These were all free and were for those Maintainers with an active contract. Overall 169 people took part, out of a total of

241 enrolments. Three new courses were offered: “CMSs in the evolution of the Web” “Secu-rity - beginners”, and “Security - advanced”.

training