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Type | non-profit organisation |
---|---|
Industry | ICT |
Founded | 1988 |
Headquarters | Midrand, South Africa |
Website | registry.net.za |
The ZA Central Registry (ZACR), formerly known as UniForum SA, is a non-profit organisation established in 1988 and operates various second-level domains (SLD's) in South Africa. [1] The ZA Central Registry is the administrator of the South African zones such as "co.za" and "web.za". Their offices are based in Midrand, South Africa.
The ZACR, in partnership with the Africa Union Commission (AUC), is the applicant for the dotAfrica domain in ICANN's new Top-level domain program. The ZACR has also partnered with the ZA Domain Name Authority [2] (ZADNA), the South African Domain Name regulator, to implement the dotJoburg, dotCapetown, and dotDurban Top-level domains (TLDs).
The ZA Central Registry was established as a non-profit company in 1988 under the name of UniForum S.A. The organisation's goal was the promotion of open standards systems and related hardware, software applications and standards. Internet Service Provider Association (ISPA) assigned to Uniforum the responsibility of administering the "co.za" domain name space. [3] This was because it was seen as not only having the technical skills and resources to do so, but also committed to neutrality and unity of purpose. The registry started with just 400 registered domains. The ZA Central Registry currently boasts over 920 000 Co.za domain name registrations, which is over 95% of the total registrations in the ".za" ccTLD. [4] This has made the registry by far the largest domain name registry on the African continent.
The registry recently signed four registry operator contracts with ICANN at its Singapore meeting in April 2014, which officially appoints the ZACR as the accredited ICANN registry to manage the administration function for ".joburg", ".capetown", ".durban" and ".africa".
Web.za [5] -is a generic top level domain which is now being administered by ZACR. This means that accredited registrars are now able to register names in Web.Za. [6] This .za 2nd level domain was re launched by ZADNA, under ZA Central Registry's operation. Web.Za will take domain name registrations on the same basis as co.za: no eligibility requirements, open to domain name applications by South Africans [7] and non-South Africans. The re-launch allows for protection of trademarks, starting with a limited sunrise and land rush processes.
.Africa(dotAfrica)- is the new generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) for the African continent. The application was submitted with the endorsement and support of the African Union Commission (AUC), individual African governments, regional governmental agencies and organisations. The .Africa domain name was launched in 2017.
.Cities [8] - ZACR in partnership with ZADNA [9] and the support of the South African Department of Communications, submitted applications for the ".durban [10] ", ".capetown [11] " and ".joburg [12] " TLDs. This will enable key South African cities to compete with their international counterparts and, more especially, allow them to showcase the cities as business and tourist destinations.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces and numerical spaces of the Internet, ensuring the network's stable and secure operation. ICANN performs the actual technical maintenance work of the Central Internet Address pools and DNS root zone registries pursuant to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) function contract. The contract regarding the IANA stewardship functions between ICANN and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the United States Department of Commerce ended on October 1, 2016, formally transitioning the functions to the global multistakeholder community.
A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As of 2017, 330.6 million domain names had been registered. Domain names are used in various networking contexts and for application-specific naming and addressing purposes. In general, a domain name identifies a network domain or an Internet Protocol (IP) resource, such as a personal computer used to access the Internet, or a server computer.
The domain name .com is a top-level domain (TLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. Added at the beginning of 1985, its name is derived from the word commercial, indicating its original intended purpose for domains registered by commercial organizations. Later, the domain opened for general purposes.
An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed in software applications, in whole or in part, in non-latin script or alphabet, such as Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Tamil or Thai or in the Latin alphabet-based characters with diacritics or ligatures, such as French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese or Spanish. These writing systems are encoded by computers in multibyte Unicode. Internationalized domain names are stored in the Domain Name System (DNS) as ASCII strings using Punycode transcription.
.xxx is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) intended as a voluntary option for pornographic sites on the Internet. The sponsoring organization is the International Foundation for Online Responsibility (IFFOR). The registry is operated by ICM Registry LLC. The ICANN Board voted to approve the sTLD on 18 March 2011. It went into operation on 15 April 2011.
Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of every fully qualified domain name. They are called generic for historical reasons; initially, they were contrasted with country-specific TLDs in RFC 920.
.za is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for South Africa. The .za namespace is managed and regulated by the .za Domain Name Authority (ZADNA). Most domains are registered under the second-level domain .co.za.
The domain name mobi is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. Its name is derived from the adjective mobile.
In the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy, a second-level domain is a domain that is directly below a top-level domain (TLD). For example, in example.com, example is the second-level domain of the .com TLD.
.web is a proposed top-level domain (TLD) that was created and assigned by an auction process to several bidding companies. It was awarded to Nu Dot Co LLC, which is primarily funded by Verisign.
A geographic top-level domain is any of an unofficial group of top-level domains in the Domain Name System of the Internet using the name of or invoking an association with a geographical, geopolitical, ethnic, linguistic or cultural community. The IANA does not recognize these domains as their own group within the Root Zone Database, rather classifying them as generic top-level domains.
Sophia Bekele Eshete is an international entrepreneur, and corporate executive, governance and risk management specialist, policy advisor on ICT, commentator and philanthropist.
.africa is the officially designated top-level domain (TLD) for the African and Pan African communities and users wherever they reside. It is a sponsored generic top-level domain (gTLD) operated by the Registry Africa. The .africa namespace is open to individuals, businesses and organizations around the world. The .africa domains are intended to showcase their brand and commitment to the African continent, establishing a home for Africa-specific products and services, expanding a brand's regional influence and acquiring online real-estate.
The .quebec domain is a new GeoTLD and Community Priority Application that was proposed to ICANN's New gTLD Program by PointQuébec, a non-profit organisation. The organisation aims to improve the businesses, culture, tourism, and online identity of Quebec and the Canadians through the .quebec TLD. According to the PointQuébec organisation, .quebec will allow all Quebecers to register their domain names under .quebec.
.music is a community-based top-level domain name (TLD) operated for the benefit of the global music community. It was one of the most highly contested new gTLDs, with eight applicants in contention.
DotConnectAfrica Trust (DCA) is an independent non-profit, non-partisan organisation that was founded in 2006. The organization was incorporated in Mauritius with the intention to sponsor, establish and operate the proposed new Top Level Domain (TLD) ".africa". Its main charitable objects are: (a) for the advancement of education in information technology to the African society; and (b) in connection with (a) to provide the African society with a continental Internet domain name to have access to Internet services for the people of Africa as a purpose beneficial to the public in general.
.saarland (dotSAARLAND) is an ICANN-approved generic top level domain (TLD). It falls into the category of Geographic TLDs (“GeoTLDs”). The new top level domain is meant for all people and businesses in the German Federal State of Saarland and those otherwise associated with Saarland. However, any natural person and any entity is eligible to register domain names in the .SAARLAND TLD.
Registry Africa was created in 2017 to manage the .africa top-level domain. .africa is the new generic Top Level Domain for Africa.
.ZADNA is a not-for-profit company that administrates the .za namespace. The .za Domain Name Authority (.ZADNA is statutory regulator and manager of .ZA. .za is the Internet country code top-level domain for South Africa. .ZADNA is an agency of South African government under the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies. ZADNA is the administrator of registry of the South Africa ccTLD.