Supporting the Domain Name Industry in Underserved Regions

[Domain Mondo <domainmondo@xxxxxxxxx>]

*"In particular, ICANN is looking at existing barriers to Registrar
Accreditation and operation and considering ways that these challenges
might be mitigated. Public comments on this report will be used to
determine next steps to support the domain name industry in underserved
regions."*

ICANN is attempting to treat the symptom and not the disease. ICANN seems
to think if it can establish registrars in "underserved regions" then
domain name registrations will follow. There is no evidence of this--this
is a faulty assumption on the part of ICANN. In fact, establishment of a
"local registrar" where there is no "local demand to register domain names"
will doom that registrar to financial failure. The real issue is "what is
holding back registration of domain names in areas of the world that ICANN
refers to as "underserved regions?" Another way of asking this question is
to determine why the majority of domain names (78%) are registered in
Europe or North America; Asia 13%, Latin America 4%, Oceania 3%, and the
Middle East and Africa combined 2%.*

Registering a domain name is relatively rare in much of the world outside
of Europe and North America. There are fewer domains registered in China
than in the United Kingdom, even though the UK internet population is one
tenth that of China’s, which has the world’s largest internet population.
China has only one registered domain for every 40 internet users.

There is a  *significant positive correlation** between a nation’s rank in
Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, and the number of domain names per
Internet user. A nation’s ranked position by GNI per capita explains about
50% of the variance in its ranking by number of domain names per Internet
user. *Another correlating factor is the absence or prevalence of internet
censorship in each nation*.


Bottom line: if ICANN wants to promote the domain name industry in
“underserved regions,” ICANN needs to assist those areas, in whatever ways
it can, in establishing the three necessary factors which have been
correlated with domain name registrations:

1) good internet connectivity available for all;

2) internet freedom (absence of internet censorship);

3) high GNI per capita.


Without the first two factors above, one can probably never achieve, or
sustain, the third factor in today's world economy.


for more info see:
http://www.domainmondo.com/2014/05/domain-name-registrations-and-global.html


<http://www.domainmondo.com/2014/05/domain-name-registrations-and-global.html>

*source: Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, England (UK)

Respectfully submitted,
John Poole, Domain Mondo
May 21, 2014