17th Conference of Administrators and Registrars of the CIS, Central and Eastern Europe was held in Belarus
The conference of administrators and registrars of the CIS, Central and Eastern Europe TLDCON was held for the first time in Minsk (Republic of Belarus) on September 5 and 6.
The main goal of TLDCON conferences, which have been held since 2008, has always been to involve leading registrars of various national top-level domains in the discussion of Internet-related issues and to organize interaction between registries and registrars of national domains of different countries. Over the years, the forum was held in such countries as Lithuania, Latvia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, Russia, Slovenia and Bulgaria. From 2020 to 2022, the conference was organized online.
More than 180 experts took part in TLDCON 2024: representatives of international organizations, top-level domain registries, officials, domain industry specialists, information security experts, lawyers and market researches. The event was attended by participants from the CIS countries, Central and Eastern Europe, Great Britain, the USA, Uruguay, Costa Rica.
The forum was held in a hybrid format - offline and online. Over the course of two days, more than 40 reports were presented in 6 thematic sections: Forum of prices in hybrid pharmacies - offline and online. During the two-day work, more than 40 reports were presented in 6 thematic sections:
- Partner news
- Legislation, regulation and legal issues
- Research and its results
- Sum of technologies
- Cybersecurity and DNS Abuse
- Applied cybersecurity
Experts from international organizations, national registries and registrar companies exchanged news and talked about the most important trends, events and plans for the future, reviewed the ICANN organization's strategic plan for 2026-2030 and the schedule for submitting applications for participation in the second stage of the New gTLD program, and discussed Global Universal Acceptance Day, which was decided to be held annually on March 28.
2024 has become an anniversary year for four EAEU registries at once: the .RU, .BY, .AM and .KZ domain zones are celebrating their 30th anniversary. The forum participants congratulated the anniversary registries and wished them a successful future. The conference has become a significant platform for discussing pressing issues, exchanging experiences and opening up new opportunities to strengthen the position of the national Internet space and develop the Bynet. The event was attended by representatives of the technical administrator of the national domain zone - Belarusian Cloud Technologies LLC (beCloud).
Deputy Director General for Information Technology at beCloud Sergey Prokopov presented a report on the development of the national domain zone .BY and a documentary film in honor of the 30th anniversary of Bynet, and also familiarized with the statistics of Belarusian domains.
Thus, as of mid-2024, about 149 thousand domain names were registered in Belarus: 96 thousand of them were registered by legal entities, 53 thousand by individuals. About 90% of those registered are residents of the Republic of Belarus, the share of foreign users is 10%. The largest number of registered domains - 69% - is in Minsk and the Minsk region. Sergey Prokopov also noted that since 2016, the .BY and .БЕЛ zones have reached a saturation plateau, and no sharp growth of the ByNet is expected in the near future. The share of the population using the Internet in Belarus is 91.5% - this is one of the highest rates in the world.
"As for security, almost our entire domain zone is free from phishing, and all domains are used for their intended purpose. Illegal actions with domains are rather nonsense for the country. A high level of security is ensured thanks to timely measures. Thus, this year, mandatory multi-factor identification of domain owners for performing operations with domain records was introduced. Since the domain is already becoming a means of ensuring business, a procedure for inheriting domains based on the relevant notarial actions was introduced. And also, the possibility for individual entrepreneurs of simplified transfer of rights to administer a domain name registered in the national domain zone to a commercial organization created by them has been provided," added Sergey Prokopov.
A beCloud representative spoke about a unique feature of the national domain zone – charity auctions. Since 2022, 39 auctions have already been held, as a result of which 12 orphanages have received charitable assistance for a total of 244,463 rubles. Over the entire period of auctions since 2012, an amount equivalent to more than 800 thousand US dollars has been allocated to charity. And another point that the speaker focused on is ensuring the processes of digital transformation of the state.
As part of the closing of the conference, the organizers indicated that the 18th International Conference of Administrators and Registrars of National Top-Level Domains of the CIS, Central and Eastern Europe TLDCON 2025 will be held in the fall of 2025 in the Russian Federation in the city of Kaliningrad.