Africa Needs Harmonized Domain Name Market Tack, ICANN Panel Says
Africa needs a unified policy approach to its domain name market, speakers said Monday at an ICANN virtual forum on the African domain name system. Among other problems are widely divergent charges for domain names, ranging $3-$500 across the continent,…
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said Moctar Yedaly, African Union Commission information society division head. The COVID-19 pandemic offers lessons for the African continent, said South Africa Central Registry CEO Lucky Masilela. In addition to harmonizing domain prices, the sector must address issues of trust and security, he said. Africa is a youthful continent, and younger people must be empowered to have their own internet identities, he said. Business barrier issues are hampering DNS markets, said Ghana Dot Com Chairman and former ICANN board member Nii Quaynor. The DNS is a public good that exists only because people are willing to use its identifiers, he said: The DNS community must manage it responsibly to ensure the internet is stable, inclusive and accessible globally. Governments should foster a friendly policy environment to allow trust, and refrain from getting into managing top-level domains, he said. As Africa migrates business to the local internet, governments must address governance through more bottom-up, multistakeholder processes, Quaynor said. They must lower business barriers through such things as a continental free trade area, and should commit to using their own country-code domains, he said. It's in every administration's best interest to safeguard the DNS, said South Africa Domain Name Authority Chairperson Palesa Legoze, whose organization manages the .za ccTLD. Countries' whose country-code top-level domains (ccTLD)s have few registrants should look at the pricing and quality of service offered, she said. Governments can fund ccTLD managers until they're viable and have the volume of domain name registrations needed, she said. Nigeria has over 200 million people and not many domain names, but it's working to correct that through offering flexible policies and pricing, encouraging the hosting of local content and creating good content, said Nigeria Internet Registration Association Executive Secretary Edith Udeagu. Foreign domain names are viewed as better than local, so her organization tries to encourage enterprises to use .ng names and websites rather than just social media platforms, and tries to spur websites that host local content, she said. Quaynor warned against nationalism. A business that serves a particular area will want a domain that shows that, but Africa-wide companies should choose, for example, .africa or .com. Legoze urged Africans to coalesce on DNS policies, to "come together and speak with one voice."