John,

Thank you again.

During the CPWG Call on 7 January 2026, my team gave me an opportunity to speak on the ICANN SWORD Algorithm. 

The justifiability of the ICANN SWORD algorithm is a subject of debate, with arguments focusing on its purpose of providing an objective process versus significant concerns regarding its proprietary nature, transparency, and perceived lack of flexibility in specific cases. 

I suggest the usage of this algorithm due to the following reasons: 

#1. number of applications anticipated
#2. Most countries in the region host more of their gTLDs outside their country's Internet infrastructure [as asserted by you in the trace]
#3. Automated support for safety and stability of the Internet.

Comments from the members of this mailing list as most welcome.

On 7 January 2026, I opted to use excerpts from just a couple of disputes on String Similarity from a collection of 69 disputed cases with another one very specific to Tamil script. I stopped collecting more case studies.

Also, I found a draft report "Policy, Business, Technical and Operational Considerations for the Management of a country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD)" from the ITU during April 2008. But the present focus is on gTLD.

ANY DATA FROM OTHER REGIONS ON THE :LINES JOHN MCCORMAC IS MOST WELCOME PLEASE.

Sincerely,



Gopal T V
0 9840121302
https://vidwan.inflibnet.ac.in/profile/57545
https://www.facebook.com/gopal.tadepalli
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr. T V Gopal
Retired Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering &
Retired Director, Centre for Applied Research in Indic Technologies [CARIT]
College of Engineering, Guindy Campus
Anna University
Chennai - 600 025, INDIA
Ph : (Off) 22351723 Extn. 3340
       (Res) 24454753
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

From: gopal <gopal@annauniv.edu>
Sent: 08 January 2026 07:33
To: CPWG <cpwg@icann.org>; jmcc@hosterstats.com <jmcc@hosterstats.com>
Subject: Re: [CPWG] The local gTLD markets for some ICANN regions and the 2026 round of new gTLDs
 
John,

Many thanks.

The Public Comment on String Similarity Guidelines is being reviewed. I am one of the four volunteers with this task.

Your mail in the trace provides some good pointers.

Gopal T V
0 9840121302
https://vidwan.inflibnet.ac.in/profile/57545
https://www.facebook.com/gopal.tadepalli
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr. T V Gopal
Retired Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering &
Retired Director, Centre for Applied Research in Indic Technologies [CARIT]
College of Engineering, Guindy Campus
Anna University
Chennai - 600 025, INDIA
Ph : (Off) 22351723 Extn. 3340
       (Res) 24454753
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From: John McCormac via CPWG <cpwg@icann.org>
Sent: 08 January 2026 03:13
To: CPWG <cpwg@icann.org>
Subject: [CPWG] The local gTLD markets for some ICANN regions and the 2026 round of new gTLDs
 
One of the problems with the gTLDs compared to ccTLDs is the lack of
registrars. This means that much of the registration activity in gTLDs
will be done via non-local registrars. That's the more well-known side
of the problem. The less well known side is the sizes of the local gTLD
web hosting industries.

Every month, I run a website IP/country/usage tracking survey of all
gTLD domain names and websites for the HosterStats Web Hosting Providers
report. Along with the country of the gTLD website, it identifies the
web hosting provider of each website and the general usage category
(active/hold/parking/sales/redirect) of the gTLDs. It also tracks over
30 million ccTLD domain names in the same survey. The numbers of web
hosting providers active in each country are in the report. These are
the gTLD website figures for the gTLD markets in the ICANN AF region
from the December 2025 report. They are the numbers of locally hosted
gTLD websites.

Most countries in the region host more of their gTLDs outside their
country's Internet infrastructure. Cote d'Ivoire has a major South
African provider using its IP space. Large numbers of IP addresses that
were allocated to the Seychelles and Mauritius were acquired and
repurposed for use outside the AF region. In the lists published by the
RIRs, these IPs appear as SC or MU IPs despite being used in other
countries. The survey methodology accoounts for that as it identifies
the web hosting provider and its country.

Local gTLD Website markets December 2025 - AF Region

Region - Country - cc -gTLD websites

AF      South Africa    ZA      568,129
AF      Cote d'Ivoire   CI      16,496
AF      Kenya   KE      15,700
AF      Seychelles      SC      7,952
AF      Tunisia TN      5,474
AF      Egypt   EG      5,005
AF      Morocco MA      4,336
AF      Algeria DZ      1,716
AF      Nigeria NG      1,598
AF      Libya   LY      1,444
AF      Mauritius       MU      780
AF      Namibia NA      692
AF      Ghana   GH      425
AF      Mali    ML      384
AF      Tanzania        TZ      347
AF      Senegal SN      321
AF      Ethiopia        ET      293
AF      Uganda  UG      265
AF      Angola  AO      229
AF      Rwanda  RW      216
AF      Zimbabwe        ZW      199
AF      Mozambique      MZ      195
AF      Congo (Dem. Rep.)       CD      182
AF      Malawi  MW      174
AF      Cameroon        CM      157
AF      Botswana        BW      91
AF      Madagascar      MG      79
AF      Togo    TG      81
AF      Zambia  ZM      73
AF      Somalia SO      73
AF      Benin   BJ      40
AF      Sudan   SD      40
AF      Guinea  GN      34
AF      Swaziland       SZ      38
AF      Equatorial Guinea       GQ      34
AF      Burkina Faso    BF      31
AF      Cape Verde      CV      28
AF      Congo (Rep.)    CG      25
AF      Gabon   GA      16
AF      Liberia LR      18
AF      Niger   NE      15
AF      Lesotho LS      14
AF      Burundi BI      12
AF      South Sudan     SS      9
AF      Djibouti        DJ      7
AF      Mauritania      MR      6
AF      Gambia  GM      5
AF      Sierra Leone    SL      5
AF      Chad    TD      5
AF      Guinea-Bissau   GW      4
AF      Central African Republic        CF      1
AF      Eritrea ER      1
AF      Comoros KM      1
AF      Sao Tome and Principe   ST      1

Some of these countries have more gTLD websites hosted outside their
country's Internet infrastructure and South Africa hosts a lot of
websites from other AF region countries. Large transnational registrars
and web hosting providers are active in some of these markets. The focus
in some is on the local ccTLD.

The normal web hosting market in a developed market is Registries -
Registrars - Reseller. (3R model) A lot of the operators at each level
are local in a developed market.

Due to the complexities and costs of acquiring ICANN registrar
accreditation, the ccTLD registrar accreditation is often easier and
cheaper to acquire. Thus more resellers become accredited ccTLD
registrars while outsourcing their gTLD registrations to large
registrars who provide registrations as a service (reseller accounts).
There is a missing tier (ICANN registrars) in some of the countries
which may be interested in the 2026 round of new gTLDs.

With the mess created by the European Commission with GDPR and the
destruction of WHOIS, it is more difficult (though not impossible) to
measure country level markets at a hosting service provider (domain name
registrations) level because the country of the registrant is often
obscured or wrong (WHOIS Privacy). This means that commonly quoted
figures simply relying on WHOIS/RDAP country fields are often badly
skewed in favour of the country of WHOIS privacy providers.

Providing support for potential applicants for the 2026 round is a good
idea. It is important that these applicants understand their markets and
the domain name business. The key part of that is selling domain names.

Regards...jmcc
--
**********************************************************
John McCormac  *  e-mail: jmcc@hosterstats.com
MC2            *  web: https://ind01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hosterstats.com%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cgopal%40annauniv.edu%7C0d2781f8e98f4c56c0e408de4e35c303%7C6e804f2402094dcdac8997525eddbd30%7C0%7C0%7C639034191362005050%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C80000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=6RbC9zNynYrf6WEIaAHxNcoXsP6Jn41wHhw4oOsSrKE%3D&reserved=0
22 Viewmount   *  Domain Registrations Statistics
Waterford      *  Domnomics - the business of domain names
Ireland        *  https://ind01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Famzn.to%2F2OPtEIO&data=05%7C02%7Cgopal%40annauniv.edu%7C0d2781f8e98f4c56c0e408de4e35c303%7C6e804f2402094dcdac8997525eddbd30%7C0%7C0%7C639034191362031612%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C80000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=ZG9bEuHwmc2auQsI9mFRKtQZ%2B9ga%2B8hn6RUaUnqqOv4%3D&reserved=0
IE             *  Skype: hosterstats.com
**********************************************************


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