Domain Names: Secure and Popular

The history of the domain name is intertwined with that of the growth of the internet. The first .com domain name was registered in 1985 and it celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2010. While internet came into existence nearly 2 decades before the first domain name was registered, this event is perhaps an inflexion point. This is because a domain name is assigned a unique IP address, which is made up of a long series of numbers that forms the basis of internet communication and allows users to locate it on the internet.

Given the dynamic nature of internet, new trends in the domain name industry are frequent. However 2011 is expected to be a little different as it will be witness to some trends in the domain name industry that would perhaps be among the most significant since its inception. Read on to know more about these trends and future directions.

.com is One of the Most Popular Domain Names

.com and .net top-level domains (TLDs) reached a combined total of 105.2 mn names at the close of 2010.

In India, .com and .net domain names reached a total of 1.037 mn domain name registrations. The total number of domain name registrations in India is estimated to be 2.15 mn. These numbers are no doubt very modest when seen in the overall contextIndia has 100 mn internet users and nearly 26 mn micro, small, and medium (MSME) businesses in India.

By 2013, the number of internet users worldwide is expected to reach 2.2 bn and India is projected to have the third largest online population. In the next 2 years as more users come online, internet will become an even greater force that businesses cannot afford to neglect. Perhaps, this may provide the required impetus for more MSMEs in India to register their domain name and build their business identities online.

DNSSEC Goes Mainstream

Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) is a big trend as it makes internet more secure by protecting the DNS, the internets addressing system that is among the most critical components of the internet infrastructure.

The DNS is vulnerable to a number of threats, including man-in-the-middle attacks and cache poisoning. These 2 threats use forged data to redirect internet traffic to fraudulent sites and unintended addresses. DNSSEC were enabled on the .com TLD early this year that constitutes nearly 80 mn registered domains. The security extensions apply digital signatures to DNS data to authenticate the datas origin and verify its integrity as it moves throughout the internet.

DNSSECs adoption will be a key area of focus through 2011. Domain name owners can take the initiative to add extra security to their domain using tools made available by their domain name registrars, while registries educate and assist registrars with rolling out DNSSEC services within the domain name registration process.

IPv6 Adoption

Before the end of 2011, internets addressing system would experience perhaps one of the most significant changes since its inception. Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) is the next generation IP address standard intended to supplement and eventually replace IPv4 protocol that most internet services use to transact on the internet today.

With a 32-bit IPv4 address space, the number of total IP addresses is limited to approximately 4.3 bn, a number that seemed more than sufficient at the time that IPv4 was developed in the early 1980s, but insufficient today with well over a billion internet users and literally billions of internet-connected devices.

The entities responsible for allocating IP address space are the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). IANA allocates IP addresses to 5 regional registries, which in turn distribute the addresses to ISPs. The last block of the remaining addresses was allocated to the registries in February 2011. Although the regional registries still have IPv4 addresses in their inventory, no new IPv4 addressed can be created.

IPv6 solves this address scarcity problem by using 128-bit addressing, creating a massively larger number of addresses340 trillion trillion trillionwidely believed to be more than what internet will need for decades. The internet access and infrastructure providers, service operators, and content providers are ramping up preparedness for the deployment of IPv6. On June 8, 2011designated as World IPv6 dayIPv6 will make its test debut.

Launch of New Generic TLDs

By the end of 2011, another significant change may be the introduction of potentially hundreds of new gTLDs to the naming system. ICANN is nearing completion of its gTLD launch plan and could start reviewing applications as early as mid-2011. Perhaps by early 2012, internet users may very well have their choice of an unprecedented array of top-level domains, from consumer domains like .shop and .bank to geographic ones like .nyc and .london.

Era of the International Internet

Today, the English-speaking world makes up less than 40% of internet users. In the coming decade, internet will continue to become a ubiquitous, multi-cultural tool, fueled in part by the adoption of internationalized domain names (IDNs). IDNs make the internet more accessible for non-English speaking countries and local communities by allowing users to access internet in their local language.

Historically, domain names have contained American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) characters, ie, domain names have used the Latin alphabet (a,b,cz), numbers (0, 19), and the hyphen (-). In October 2009, ICANN announced the launch of IDN country code TLDs that will be written entirely in the local language. ????.???? is an example of an IDN ccTLD in the Hindi language.

In January 2011, ICAAN approved Indias application for the launch of internationalized cc TLDs to the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI)11 in 7 Indian languagesHindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, and Gujarati. Website registrations in these regional languages are expected to be made available in the second half of 2011.

These progressive innovations have been made possible through the tireless efforts of the internet community that is working together to ensure that the year 2011 be remembered as historic for helping to ensure the stability, security, and growth of internet.