Mr Mohammad Gheyath, Executive Director, Technology Development Affairs at TRA, and Mr Mohammad Zarooni, Director of .ae Domain Administration, at the .aeDA Media Roundtable in Dubai yesterday

If it’s in the UAE it’s gotta be .ae

Dubai, October 11, 2009: The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA)Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has begun the second phase of its marketing campaign to enhance the registration of the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) of the United Arab Emirates – .ae.

The main objective of the campaign is to target new businesses that have yet to register a domain name and also existing organizations and businesses that have a web presence but have not registered for a .ae domain name.

“In the period [August 2008 to August 2009], the number of new registrations increased by 30 per cent compared to the corresponding period the year before. There are more registrars [no monopoly] providing .ae domain name registration. Customers have the choice to select their registrar as competition leads to better service. The registration process brought online has also made it easier,” said TRA

The campaign highlights the importance of registering and using .ae domain names by all public and private entities operating in UAE or having a relationship with UAE. If an internet address has .ae at the end of it, its registered in the United Arab Emirates and a part of the .ae domain space regulated by the .aeDA.

In his comments, H.E. Mohamed Naser Al Ghanim, TRA Director General, said: “We encourage all companies and entities in UAE to move to .ae as it truly represents their UAE identity on the Internet.”

Al Ghanim added: “Through the introduction of .aeDA, we streamlined and automated the entire registration process and brought on multiple new accredited Registrars for better pricing, services and access. We also made changes to increase .ae openness and accessibility while retaining the strong moral and cultural identity of the UAE. Our new campaign is aimed at promoting the .ae domain so that it becomes the domain of choice for all users willing to showcase a UAE presence on the World Wide Web.”

The most common usage in the area of domain names is .com, which is an example of a generic Top Level Domain (gTLD). With the commercialization and popularization of the Internet in the 1990s, the .com domain quickly became the most common top-level domain for websites, email and networking.

The use of ccTLDs like .ae is specific to individual countries around the world. Some examples of ccTLDs are .uk for the United Kingdom, .au for Australia and .kw for Kuwait. The trend towards localizing online contents for better serving national identity, communities, customers and end users has paved the way for many websites to move to ccTLDs.

“There are many rational benefits to have a .ae domain name,” said Mohammed Gheyath, Executive Director, Technology Development Affairs. “It allows you to protect your web space, access the name you want for your domain name, and signal to your customers where your business is located. It is worth mentioning that .com is a saturated namespace and has already 80 million registered domain names compared to around 90 thousands registered .ae domain names. This would make the chance of getting good and catchy names under .ae much higher than .com But one of main emotional reasons is national pride. The UAE has an excellent local, regional, and global representation as an economic powerhouse and an ultra-modern nation. Having a .ae address is a big business tool that lets the company develop a unique national identity that positively communicates that the company is based in the UAE. An example of countries where the use of ccTLD dominates the use of .com is Germany. Almost all German websites uses .de as they consider it a national pride.”

Additional details and information about .aeDA Registry System and the accredited .aeDA registrars are available on the website www.aeda.ae. The .aeDA is responsible for the setting and enforcement of all policy with regard to the operation of the .ae ccTLD as well as overseeing the operation of the Registry System.

Registrations of the .ae domain name have increased by 30 per cent this year, with the most being from Dubai, said the country’s telecom?regulator.

The Telecommunication Regulation Authority (TRA) told Emirates Business it had witnessed growth this year mainly because of the new policy framework and a non-monopolistic environment among registrars.

“In the period [August 2008 to August 2009], the number of new registrations increased by 30 per cent compared to the corresponding period the year before. There are more registrars [no monopoly] providing .ae domain name registration. Customers have the choice to select their registrar as competition leads to better service. The registration process brought online has also made it easier,” said TRA.

In fact, during the second quarter in 2009, country code TLDs (ccTLDs) globally rose by 14 per cent year- over-year to 74.4 million domain names.

.ae is the internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the UAE. It is administered by .aeDA, which is part of TRA.

The .ae domain was originally delegated to internet service provider UUNET. Recognising the domain should be administered in the country, it was transferred in 1995 to etisalat, following a brief period of administration by the UAE University. Since then, etisalat, through UAE Network Information Centre (UAEnic) division, has been responsible for operation of .ae domain.

During 2006, the TRA announced that .ae management and operations would be re-delegated to it from etisalat/UAEnic, the current .ae ccTLD manager.

A new entity called .ae Domain Administration (.ae DA) was formed to take care of management and operations of .ae based on the latest Domain Name System (DNS) and domain registry technologies. During January 2008, IANA(Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) officially re-delegated .ae domain to TRA.

In August 2008, .aeDA took over DNS (domain name system) and launched their services with the new registry system, which supports registry-registrar model. Currently, .aeDA has accredited 15 registrars, including etisalat, from different parts of the world.

Following our post on August 12th titled: UAE domain regulator accused in copyright row the domain name irena.ae has been deleted from the registry system. However the registration of the domain name has been blocked for everyone as it has been added to the reserved list of the aeDA registry and the name can be only activated by a thorough review by aeDA before approving the registration of the name.
This closes the case of irena.ae which has been also marked as cyber squatting by the registry.

It’s been an iconic and a historic date in the history of Dubai. The launch of Dubai Metro on 09/09/09 and exactly at 09.09.09 PM (Dubai Time) has attracted mass attention of the public and international and local media.

That’s not all, the domain name 090909.ae has been also registered at the same date and time and is now listed for sale on the AfterMarket.ae website. This sale can be another record breaker after horse.ae has been sold for 6 Million AED.
The domain 090909.ae is a true opportunity to invest into the history of Dubai and the development of the Emirates.

The domain listing can be found here

The .ae Domain Administration (.aeDA) has launched a two month advertising campaign to promote the United Arab Emirates ccTLD .AE with the aim of attracting an additional 200,000 registrations by 2010.

The campaign has been launched in most known media means, such as printed ads in the most prominent national newspapers in English and Arabic, radio stations, emails, outdoor advertising, on the TRA website, and on the .aeDA website.

The campaign follows an initial six-month campaign launched in November 2008 aimed at launching the .aeDA. The campaign was supported by an awareness and introductory campaign for .AE. The launching of the .aeDA then has been considered an achievement that the TRA is proud to label as one of its initiatives, where the .aeDA was inaugurated on 3 August 2008.

The .aeDA is responsible for the setting and enforcement of all policy with regard to the operation of the .AE ccTLD, as well as overseeing the operation of the Registry System. The .aeDA role is to develop and execute policy; grow, develop and market the .AE namespace; accredit and manage .AE Registrars; educate the public, delivering and promoting the .AE domain name; facilitate the .AE Dispute Resolution Policy; and represent the .AE nationally, regionally and internationally.

More information on .AE domain names can be found at aeda.ae.

The UAE internet domain regulator has denied a company its own .ae website, despite the firm holding a 12-year-old trademark for the name in question.
Michael Reed, a businessman from the UK, had decided to begin selling Irena, a nutritional supplement, in the UAE and registered the Irena.ae domain with AEDA, the regulatory body for the country’s internet domain name.

But after the name was registered, the agency deleted the domain, saying it belonged to the International Renewable Energy Association (IRENA), an intergovernmental organisation that will be headquartered in Abu Dhabi.

“If it’s a governmental organisation then, as per their own rules, .gov.ae is the correct top level domain,” Reed said.

In addition, the parent company of Reed’s firm has held the trademark for Irena in Europe and the UK for the past twelve years, he added.

The incident has made the company scrap its plans to enter the UAE market.

AEDA declined to comment.

The agency’s website states that it will “continually strive to maintain best practice for the administration of the .ae [domain] and will administer the .ae domain in a fair and transparent manner”.

Source

Abu Dhabi based The National daily has published an article about the recent horse.ae sale and about the overall .ae domain name industry. This includes current WIPO dispute cases on domains such as dunkin donuts and some others.

The most exiting part is that my interview with the reporter has been published as well, along with my comments and thoughts on the sale and the market! Read the full story in the paper (29th July) or online here…

On Saturday July 25 there was a price update on horse.ae website, which stated that offers of AED 6 million are now accepted (whereas previously it stated 5 million) and today on the 26th and as promised by the seller, the sale has been finally finalized. This is what the website’s landing page conveys.

We have made an attempt to find out the actual sale price, but no news as of this moment.

Dunkin’ Brands, through two intellectual property holding companies, has filed for arbitration to get United Arab Emirates .ae domain names related to two of its brands.

The two separate cases were filed with World Intellectual Property Organization. In the first case, the company filed for two domains related to Dunkin’ Donuts: dunkin-donuts.ae and dunkindonuts.ae. The second case is for Baskin Robbins: baskin-robbins.ae and baskinrobbins.ae.

United Arab Emirates recently liberalized its registration rules. The domain names were probably registered after the registration rules changed.

Both Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin Robbins have stores in United Arab Emirates.

All of the domain names are registered to Ali Abdelwahed. Abdelwahed also received a domain arbitration filing for hardees.ae, filed by the popular fast food restaurant chain. Hardees is part of CKE Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE: CKR).

All the 4 domains are registered with IP Mirror, an aeDA accredited registrar. The whois record shows that today the aeDA has added a few restrictions on the domains in the global DNS, mainly the following:
# serverUpdateProhibited – under dispute
# serverTransferProhibited – under dispute
# serverDeleteProhibited – under dispute
# serverRenewProhibited – under dispute
These show that an action is currently being carried out. We will monitor and keep you posted on the process.

Source