Friday, 24 February 2017

.AFRICA Delegated to ZACR


After a lengthy legal battle, ICANN has officially delegated the .africa extension to ZA Central Registry NPC (ZACR). ZACR currently manages the South African ccTLDs (co.za, org.za, etc.) and city TLDs (.joburg, .capetown and .durban).

.africa will be launched in three phases: Sunrise, Landrush and General Availability. Here is the tentative launch schedule:

Sunrise: 4 April 2017
General Availability: 4 July 2017

.africa is expected to be quite popular with growing anticipation leading up to launch. Lexsynergy considers it to be an essential extension for all African corporates and those that conduct business in Africa. We recommend securing all core trademarks during the Sunrise phase and other high-value domains during Landrush or General Availability. Trademarks should be submitted to the Trademark Clearinghouse in anticipation of the Sunrise launch in April.

We will provide the finalized launch schedule and pricing details once they are available. Should you have any questions about .africa or wish to add your Sunrise domains to our automatic queue, please email support@lexsynergy.com.

Thursday, 16 February 2017

Nigeria's ccTLD Develops New Strategies For .NG Growth

Recognising excellence and innovation, driving IPv6 adoption and better opportunities for registrar accreditation are among the ideas the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) is proposing to help drive growth of its ccTLD.

Registrations of .ng domain names have steadily increased over time, but there is plenty of opportunity for growth as there were only 76,000 .ng registrations as of the end of 2016. But on the bright side, registrations almost doubled in 2016.

Recognising the importance of .ng, Reverend Sunday Folayan, the President of the Executive Board of Directors at NiRA told Nigeria’s Guardian newspaper that “domain names offer any business, individual [or] entity online presence to offer their goods and services simpler, easier and faster.” Adding That when they “are properly used in Nigeria, it will boost the [Nigerian] economy.” However, there is a negative stigma Nigerians attach to Nigerian products, and Folayan says NiRA also has to overcome this to get more .ng domain names registered and more hosting done locally.

Lexsynergy is leader in managing African ccTLDs and can help you with your .ng registration. Email us at support@lexsynergy.com.

Tuesday, 14 February 2017

.SK Local Requirements Removed


The registry for .sk, the ccTLD of Slovakia, has announced changes to the restrictions for .sk. Beginning 31 May 2017, the restriction that the registrant has to be local in Slovakia will be removed.

In addition, since local trustees will no longer be necessary the registry will no longer allow WHOIS protection or local trustees. The WHOIS details must reflect the details of the registrant.

When registering a .sk domain, private persons will have to fill his/her date of birth (this won't be shown on the WHOIS record). Legal persons and companies will have to fill in its ID (VAT number).

If you are currently using Lexsynergy's Local Presence service for your  .sk domain, we will work with you over the coming months to update the information on the registration. If you have any questions about these policy changes, please email us at support@lexsynergy.com

Friday, 10 February 2017

Google Chrome SSL Update: "Not Secure" Warning

Overview
To help users browse websites more securely, Google has announced that the latest release of its Chrome browser will mark all unencrypted HTTP sites as “not secure” in the browser URL. This is part of Google’s plan to discourage use of sites that don’t use appropriate security measures and to transition web traffic from potentially insecure HTTP to the safer alternative HTTPS sites.

Why is Google making this change?
Older versions of Google Chrome cannot indicate whether HTTP connections are secure. This means that when users access a site using HTTP, a hacker could intercept login information, passwords or payment data, increasing the opportunities for fraud.

A recent Google study identified that the current neutral indicator in the web browser has little impact on users, and a “not secure” warning is more effective. In labeling HTTP sites more clearly and accurately Google aims to give users more reassurance when using certain websites. Ultimately, Google plans to label sites that continue to use HTTP with a red warning triangle to indicate that these sites are not functioning securely.

When does this change take place?
Beginning in January 2017, Google’s Chrome 56 browser will label HTTP pages that include sensitive information, such as password or credit card fields, as “not secure”.

Why transition to HTTPS?
HTTPS ensures that when a user accesses a website, this data is encrypted using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol or the more modern version, Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. In order to implement HTTPS, site owners must obtain a trusted digital certificate for each of their sites. Google reports that HTTPS usage is increasing substantially and that a significant portion of web traffic has transitioned to HTTPS to date.

What are the benefits of encrypting my website?
  • HTTPS offers many advantages over HTTP, including powerful new features and performance including:
  • Always-on SSL (AOSSL): a practical best practice to protect user data and ensure a site’s pages, cookies, APIs, and sessions are secure
  • SEO benefits: Google’s search engine algorithms boost rankings of sites that use HTTPS encryption
  • Performance: encrypted sites get the performance enhancements that come with HTTPS and performance is a significant search engine ranking signal
  • Control: Third parties and Wi-Fi hot spots can insert ads on web pages, potentially slowing site performance and messing up the user experience
  • Credibility: the reassurance of encryption to users should not be underestimated. Visual trust cues can help reduce bounce rates, abandoned shopping carts, and improve trust
Is the change in Google Chrome relevant to individual pages or the entire site?
Browsers are looking at pages, so as pages appear they examine them for password or credit card fields. If these fields are present, the site will be flagged. If no fields are present, the site is not flagged. Any pages within the site that are flagged need encryption to prevent browser warnings indicating the page is not secure.

My site isn’t e-commerce, why is this important?
Sensitive and personal data is not limited to e-commerce websites. Examples are e-mail accounts (access to an e-mail account can lead to many types of abuse) or passwords being shared for different services. That's why Google does not differentiate between types of websites.

Will my internal pages, not accessible to the general public, be subject to the same warning messages?
This is a change controlled at the browser level, not at the user level. So, you’ll still have the error messages for internal sites lacking HTTPS, which could cause confusion for users within your internal environment(s).

How can I prioritize which pages to secure?
At a minimum, start with password and credit card pages as we know these are pages that will be impacted by this change. Then, begin looking at other pages. A best practice for prioritization purposes would be to address the pages on your site with the highest traffic, as these will be visited the most and have the highest chance of a negative user experience when error messages are displayed.

Speaking of Google, will not having HTTPS impact my search ranking?

Yes, sites with HTTPS are given preference in search rankings (which has been widely publicized), so it goes to show that using HTTPS is important for your SEO activities.

What can I do next to secure my website?
Lexsynergy has a streamlined process for purchasing and managing SSL certificates. Simply login to your Lexsynergy Account and navigate to the SSL tab. There you can choose from top brands like Symantec, GeoTrust, Thawte, RapidSSL and Comodo. If you need assistance purchasing an SSL certification contact your account manager or email us at support@lexsynergy.com.

Monday, 6 February 2017

.TEL Updates - Removing DNS Restrictions and New Hosting Platform

Removing DNS Restrictions

The .tel registry has recently announced that they will be removing the DNS restrictions for .tel domains beginning 13 March 2017. This will allow .tel registrants the freedom of choice with respect to the hosting and use of their .tel domain.

Previously, all active .tel domains were required to use the registry’s Community Telhosting system. This included using their DNS and website template. .tel domains could not deviate from this template or be forwarded to another domain.

Starting 13 March 2017, .tel domains will function like any other domain. Registrants will have complete hosting and creative control over their .tel websites.

New Telhosting Platform

Telnic will be releasing a new version of the Telhosting platform. This optional platform will offer a more modern, feature rich, single page solution to hosting and publishing a .tel domain. New features will include advanced custom design capability, PayPal integration, voucher and offers, PDF publishing and image library. The new platform is not required and completely optional. Here is a timeline for the switch:
  • From 13 February 2017, Telnic will issue (by email) all .tel registrants with account details to the new Telhosting platform. Once you receive the details, you can access your new account and start adding content.
  • From 13 March 2017, any content you have added to the new platform will be published to the internet. From this date, any content on the current platform will stop being published on the internet. Please note that Telnic will not be performing any data migration from the current to the new platform. Therefore, if you have your contact details entered into the current platform, these details will not be automatically transferred to the new platform. 
  • From 13 March 2017, all usage restrictions will be lifted from .tel and you get to choose how you use your .tel domain.
If you have any questions about these changes, please contact us at support@lexsynergy.com

Thursday, 2 February 2017

Successful UDRP Recovery - paperlessport.com and peperlesspost.com

 
One of the most common techniques of typosquatters is switching a single letter within a trade mark. In this case a squatter switched letters within Paperless Post and registered both paperlessport.com and peperlesspost.com. Lexsynergy was able to prove that the domain name was confusingly similar to Paperless Post’s trade mark registration with the USPTO and that the squatter was using the domain in bad faith.

Lexsynergy was successful in recovering the domain names paperlessport.com and peperlesspost.com via a UDRP complaint.

Read the full decision here: http://www.adrforum.com/domaindecisions/1629515.htm

If a squatter has registered a domain name that is confusing similar to your trademark, the UDRP is a viable, cost-efficient way to take control of this domain. For more details, email us at brandprotection@lexsynergy.com