October 2007

Seven years ago the Oireachtas gave the Minister certain powers (Note 1) in relation to the .ie namespace. These powers were never exercised by him, and in May 2007 these powers and others were transferred to Comreg (Note 2). Following this transfer, Comreg has now decided to do a health check on .ie registry operations.

Independent international consultants Jim Reid and Eva Frolich have been appointed to carry out the health check. The consultants will do this work as Agents of Comreg, whose authorization derives from the Communications Regulation (Amendment) Act 2007.

The IEDR welcomes this process given that it will take place at the end of a busy five-year period of solid achievements for the registry. In the period since November 2002, the services, processes, procedures and prices have changed significantly, in that:

• prices have decreased by 50%,
• the number of .ie domains has more than doubled to 86,000 domains,
• McAfee ranked .ie as the second safest domain namespace worldwide in early 2007, after .fi (Finland),
• Comreg selected the IEDR (Note 3) to operate the ENUM registry in Ireland, following a competitive international tender process. The ENUM service went live in May 2007,
• the company's finances and profitability have been restored to a secure and liquid position
• resellers are using IEDR's xml-based API systems since 2006, which followed the introduction of a web-based console in April 2005, giving resellers 24/7 visibility and transparency over their .ie portfolios,
• over this timeframe the .ie namespace has not had serious issues with the Internet scourges of spam, identity theft, credit card fraud, cybersquatting, phishing - mainly because the registry carries out authentication checks on each new registrant's entitlement prior to registration (known as the "Managed Registry Model"),
• personal domain names will become available for individuals on October 31, 2007 - following an industry consultation process.

As part of their work the consultants will speak to stakeholders in the Local Internet Community. In this regard, it is important to note that the exercise covers .ie domain Registry Operations only. The c.60% of the domain market represented by .com .net .org and .eu are not within the scope of the review.

If there are any questions in relation to the above please to not hesitate to contact us at hostmaster@iedr.ie

Note 1 - E-Commerce Act 2000
Note 2 - Communications Regulation (Amendment) Act 2007
Note 3 - through its joint venture company with IPA of Austria