Almost one in eight (12.3%) of .EU registrations in the second quarter of 1011 were now for multiyear registrations following the registry’s implementation of this option, EURid announced in their quarterly report. On the fifth birthday for .EU in April 2011, registrants were given the option for registering domain names for up to ten years. To promote multiyear registrations, EURid introduced a promotional offer (that was valid until 31 May) where registrars received a 50 per cent discount on all new .EU registrations of two, five and ten years. “It is one of our duties as the .EU registry to continually add value to the services we offer registrars. Extending the length of time .EU domain names can be registered for is one such service and I am encouraged by how well .EU multiyear registrations were received during the second quarter,” said Marc Van Wesemael, EURid’s General Manager. During the quarter, registrations for .EU domains decreased by 1.2 per cent to 3.35 million, making .EU the fifth largest ccTLD. The number one ccTLD in terms of active registrations is .DE (Germany), currently with 14.577 million registrations followed by .UK (United Kingdom – 9.559m), .NL (Netherlands – 4.641m) and .RU (Russia – 3.410m). The decrease in registrations came about due to every April a large number of registrations are not renewed, coinciding with the anniversary of .EU’s launch. In addition, two countries, Cyprus and Luxembourg, reported reduced volumes as some registrars did not renew large sections of their .EU portfolios. However year-on-year there was a 4.2 per cent increase in registration numbers. EURid’s full report for Q2 2011 is available for download at: link.eurid.eu/reports . To register your .EU domain name, check out Europe Registry here .

Nominet have established an issue group to review domain name expiry policy while also launching two customer satisfaction surveys. The review will take into account issues relating to the expiry period, post expiry and the renewal of expired domain names more generally. To get discussion going there is an issue brief available to outline the focus of the group’s discussions. The issue group process is designed to allow stakeholders to continue to give us regular input as the issue group discussion progresses. The group brings together expertise and experience from within and outside the domain name industry with participants who will form the core of this issue group, chaired by Gordon Moir, a lawyer and former Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Task Force on Telecoms and ICT. The group’s first meeting will take place on 27 September 2011. For the customer satisfaction surveys, they are designed to measure the level of satisfaction with the support services that Nominet offers. These surveys are being carried out on Nominet’s behalf by an independent market research company called The Leadership Factor. The findings from both these surveys will be published once the research and analysis is completed. The member and registrar satisfaction survey will help Nominet measure service levels and identify areas for improvement through a short telephone research interview for members and registrars, who have recently used support services. The second survey is a registrant satisfaction survey for registrants who have used support services. For this survey an email will be sent inviting participation. The registrant satisfaction survey measures the level of satisfaction delivered by Nominet’s registrant support service. The survey results will be used to make further improvements to our systems and services. Previous years surveys are available here . To register your .UK domain name, check out Europe Registry here .

The recently registered domain names sunonsunday.co.uk and thesunonsunday.co.uk have been transferred to News International reports The Guardian following speculation about who registered them after the controversial closure of Britain’s largest selling Sunday newspaper News of the World. Mired in phone hacking allegations of murdered teenager Millie Dowler by people acting on behalf of the NotW and attempting to wrest control of the 60 per cent of BSkyB it does not own, News International decided to close the newspaper to deflect some of the problems. The domain names were registered on behalf of an unnamed registrant “the day after the Guardian revealed that a private detective acting for the News of the World hacked into the murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s voicemail, but before News International announced that it was to close the paper after 168 years when advertisers and politicians turned against it.” The Guardian also reports that News has not taken control of all the relevant domains having not “so far acquired control of what could be seen as a related domain, Sunonsunday.com, which was created much earlier, in September 2007, and is owned by Marco Milani, the bassist in the group Sun on Sunday. Thesunonsunday.com is owned by an unnamed British individual, and was also registered on 5 July.”

Host Virtual Adds Native IPv4 + IPv6 UK Cloud Web Hosting – San Jose, CA – “We’re excited to announce our second IPv4 + IPv6 cloud location in Europe,” said Sandy Bhargavi, Host Virtual’s Vice President of Operations.

Not much has changed from previous years, but the latest DENIC statistics on where .DE domain name registrants are shows that Osnabrück has the highest concentration of domain names with 591 domain names per 1,000 people followed by Munich (432) and Bonn (393). Among districts, Amberg Sulzbach tops the list with 715 registrations per 1000 people, followed by Freising leads (399) and Starnberg (357), all making a great leap forward again. And among the Bundesländern (states), the city-state of Hamburg leads with with 286 domains per 1000 followed by Berlin (229) with Bavaria third with 193

Google has recently released its first quarter 2011 results.The company announced revenues of $8.58 billion in the first quarter od 2011,representing 27% year-over-year revenue growth .

Web giant Google Inc. announced Tuesday it will be providing websites and hosting services free of charge to Canadian businesses. Google has partnered with Rogers Communications Inc., Royal Bank of Canada, the free website builder tool, Yola Inc., based in San Francisco, and the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) in the initiative called Get Your Business Online (gybo.ca or ecsel.ca in French)