Dear John, CPWG colleagues,
Thank you for the detailed data and analysis. The figures you shared clearly illustrate two structural realities that many regions—particularly AF and Pacific Island countries—continue to face:
the absence or scarcity of locally accredited ICANN registrars, and
the loss of meaningful market visibility following GDPR and WHOIS/RDAP changes.
In many small or developing markets, expecting registrar accreditation as the primary path to local gTLD ecosystem development is neither realistic nor cost-effective. At the same time, relying on WHOIS/RDAP fields to understand local markets is increasingly unreliable due to privacy and proxy services.
A practical complementary approach may be to introduce a Trusted Local Business Verification Layer, operating alongside (not instead of) registrars and registries.
In simple terms, this would be a Trusted Local Business Register managed by recognised local institutions (e.g. chambers of commerce, SME authorities, ICT regulators), which verifies legitimate local entities independently of WHOIS data. Registrars and registries—particularly new gTLD applicants in the 2026 round—could voluntarily reference this verification to:
demonstrate genuine local market engagement,
distinguish legitimate local use from speculative registrations, and
partially restore market visibility lost through privacy regimes, without exposing personal data.
Such a model does not require ICANN registrar accreditation, does not alter existing contractual frameworks, and is GDPR-safe by design. It may be especially relevant in AF and Pacific regions where reseller models dominate and local hosting ecosystems are still emerging.
From a CPWG perspective, this kind of locally governed verification layer could:
support underserved-region applicants in the 2026 round,
provide better post-WHOIS market signals, and
strengthen public-interest justifications without adding regulatory burden.
I believe this approach aligns well with CPWG’s focus on practical market realities and could be explored as a voluntary best practice or pilot concept rather than a policy mandate.
Kind regards,
Chubasco M. Diranga
CPWG Participant
Papua New Guinea / Pacific Region
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 V0 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 gTLDsOne 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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