The agenda for today's short presentation is set with three objectives in mind. The first one is to introduce the IEDR, provide some information on our role and operations, describe a little of the registration process and then to highlight the important features of our technical infrastructure. Second, I wish to outline the structure of the domain name industry and to explain how the .ie registry competes in a global market. We will illustrate the competitive intensity of the national domain market and how Irish consumers benefit from this competition in terms of price, choice and service. Third, I will explain how we measure our performance in terms of key performance indicators and to illustrate our track record in recent years.
The IE Domain Registry is a small company. We have 14 staff and an annual income of approximately €2.5 million. However, the company has an important mission. It is the registry for all Internet addresses ending in .ie. We control, manage and operate the .ie country code top level domain, CCTLD. There can only be one operator per country and we are that operator for this country. In England the .uk name space is managed by a company called Nominet and in Germany the .de name space is managed by a company called DENIC.
What do we mean when we say "domain name"? It is really an Internet address, so for example the domain name www.iedr.ie refers to a website that can be found on a name server or a computer with the Internet protocol, IP, address 217.114.116.217. It is almost like a post office, PO, box for all Internet, e-mail or website traffic.
What do we mean when we say we are a registry? We are the registry for all addresses or domain names ending in .ie. That means we operate a database of .ie domain names and that database contains all the information on each domain name, namely, the registrant's name, address, contact details and the IP address, in other words, where it can be found on the Internet. We update that database four times per day.
Registration grants the registrant or user a right of use of that domain name, so it is not ownership in the name of a property right. Registrants can come directly to the IE Domain Registry or through resellers. Currently, more than 98% of all new registrations come through the reseller channel. Our resellers include Internet service providers, hosting service providers and designers of websites. In general, they rarely offer just a domain to their customers, they offer a bundle of services. That bundle of services can change or vary depending on whether they want to focus on low price or high price and high service.
Up to May 2007 the .ie name space was the responsibility of the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources in accordance with the provisions of the Electronic Commerce Act 2000. That gave the Minister power to make regulations on a range of matters affecting the national .ie name space. The Minister never found it necessary to exercise his discretion under the Act to make those regulations. Under amending legislation in 2007 the Minister's powers were transferred to ComReg with the passage of the Communications (Regulation) Amendment Act 2007.
On the managed registry model, across the globe there are approximately 240 entities like us, one per country. A whole range of different models are in operation. At one end of the continuum one has .com, where essentially anyone can register any .com name. However, the model this country has operated with broad official and market approval is called a managed registry model. That means we have registration policies and procedures. We ask that registrants must have a real and substantive connection to the island of Ireland, that is the 32 counties of Ireland. We also ask that they authenticate their claim to the chosen .ie domain name. It depends on who is applying, but in general an applicant could be asked to provide a company number or a VAT number. We can verify that because we have access to on-line databases. In the vast majority of registrations there is not a need for a flow of documentation or bureaucracy.
We believe the managed registry model has significant benefits for Ireland Incorporated. Given that we authenticate the claim of the registrant to a domain name we are essentially checking out that registrant so that consumers or users of the website do not have to do so. That means there is less cybercrime on .ie websites. We do not have cybersquatting. In other words, if someone were to register a domain name that one would think would be more appropriately registered by another, for example, if one tried to register microsoft.ie, because registrants must authenticate their claim to the domain name that would not happen on the .ie name space. We do not have identity theft.
We have a reduced likelihood of illegal, explicit or immoral content on .ie websites. For instance, if someone feels there is illegal content on a website he or she can inform the authorities and because we have traceability the authorities can see who is behind that .ie website and they can take the appropriate action to follow up a case. We have fewer intellectual property legal battles and as a result we have a higher quality e-commerce platform for users of the Internet.
We provide an element of intellectual property protection for registrants. In the .com world if one registers a .com name, one needs to register another ten similar sounding names in order to protect one’s intellectual property and avoid the cybersquatting to which I referred earlier. As a result, in the .ie name space, more websites are attached to domain names and that gives a higher utilisation percentage than one would get in .com. We have a quality domain name system, DNS, with fewer name delegations, so one does not have broken links. That gives a higher quality registry. This is important to all registrants, the users, and also other stakeholders. Our stakeholders include not only the industry which includes the Irish Internet Association and IBEC, but also the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, intellectual property lawyers, the National Consumer Agency and even the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform which is responsible for the recently launched office of Internet security. The managed name space offers benefits for Ireland Inc. and our stakeholders.
It is important to clarify that the IEDR does not have any responsibility in a number of areas. It has nothing to do with .com, .net, .eu or any other top level domain. We are not responsible for the content of websites. Therefore, if the content is illegal, defamatory or slanderous, we are not responsible, although many of our registration and naming policies will contribute to the public policy goals in these areas. We do not offer services that the Internet service providers or hosting service providers offer; hence there is no conflict with our customers, the reseller group.
Consider the question of who is likely to register .ie addresses. Websites are used for a variety of reasons — business, social, cultural and governmental. In the case of the .ie name space, over 83% of our domain names are registered to businesses, be they limited companies or sole traders. Clubs, societies and small agencies account for approximately 11% of the total, or 8,000 domain names. The challenge for our company is to convince users and registrants to chose a .ie name rather than a .com name. We argue that .ie is a local address and shows one has an Irish identity. It is likely to rate higher on search engines, including Google, which is how people find websites these days. The domain name is available and traceable. Our mantra is that, with a .ie website, one knows with whom one is dealing.
We provide free domain names for charities. All they need is a registered charity number from the Office of the Revenue Commissioners to indicate they are approved. We also provide free domain names for schools which are part of the national broadband roll-out scheme.
The domain name system, DNS, is the addressing system on the Internet. That is how traffic such as that associated with e-mail and websites is routed around the globe. Since the DNS is so important to the functioning of the Internet, it must be highly available and reliable. In Ireland we achieve these objectives by having a DNS infrastructure that consists of 22 name servers or computers placed all around the globe. They are managed on our behalf by reputable companies such as Hewlett Packard, BT Ireland——
