Subject ------------------------------ 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: 1. the absence or scarcity of locally accredited ICANN registrars, and 2. 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 “Simple, genuine goodness is the best capital to found the business of this life upon. It lasts when fame and money fail, and is the only riches we can take out of this world with us.” On Thu, Jan 8, 2026 at 2:03 PM gopal via CPWG <cpwg@icann.org> wrote:

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.hosters... <http://www.hosterstats.com/> 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%2F... <https://amzn.to/2OPtEIO> IE * Skype: hosterstats.com **********************************************************

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On 08/01/2026 02:24, Chubasco Diranga wrote:

Subject ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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:

These are the figures for the AP (Asia Pacific) region, Chubasco, The important thing to bear in mind is that they are the local hosting figures for gTLD websites on IP addresses associated with the countries. Cloud hosting also adds an extra layer of complexity. There is often a parallel market in each country's ccTLD. What happens in the early phase of a country's Internet infrastructure development is that much of the hosting will be on the hosting infrastructure of other countries. This is exactly what happened with Ireland and other European countries in the early 1990s. As the infrastructure developed, more local providers appeared and much of the hosting moved back to the local providers. Some providers will maintain their reseller accounts and web hosting in other countries even when the infrastructure has developed. The reason is often based on pricing. This leads to some countries having larger markets (US/DE/UK/FR/AU/SG) that include some of these providers. Godaddy's main DNS provides DNS service for approximately 11,882 web hosting providers. These are effectively resellers and customers of Godaddy that do not host their websites on Godaddy's web hosting. This is part of the reseller layer that Alan Greenberg has mentioned on the calls. Resellers with their own DNS are often easier to associate with a country as the domain name WHOIS could, in the past, be checked. While some registrars are larger providers that may have customers in other countries, resellers tend to be incredibly local with their customer base because they are often web developers who are developing websites for customers in their locality and they know their customers. The catch, and there always is one, is that they may often host outside their country's Internet infrastructure. One of the best examples is that of Nigeria (NG). It has 1,598 gTLD websites on IP addresses associated with Nigeria. It has 84,497 gTLD domain names on identified Nigerian hosting providers. Local website hosting markets AP region December 2025 AP Japan JP 3,482,598 AP Turkey TR 1,191,467 AP India IN 1,119,015 AP Korea (South) KR 659,976 AP Singapore SG 2,132,016 AP Iran IR 323,947 AP Bangladesh BD 65,176 AP Philippines PH 52,288 AP Kazakhstan KZ 13,835 AP Israel IL 39,166 AP Cyprus CY 37,169 AP Saudi Arabia SA 25,031 AP Cambodia KH 40,818 AP Indonesia ID 326,831 AP Jordan JO 1,531 AP Viet Nam VN 305,056 AP Malaysia MY 164,210 AP Georgia GE 2,239 AP Uzbekistan UZ 1,322 AP Mongolia MN 844 AP Pakistan PK 18,634 AP Iraq IQ 729 AP Nepal NP 4,926 AP Hong Kong HK 6,604,549 AP China CN 3,031,950 AP Australia AU 1,837,150 AP Taiwan TW 227,125 AP Thailand TH 158,195 AP United Arab Emirates AE 65,921 AP Armenia AM 37,810 AP New Zealand NZ 29,293 AP Bahrain BH 3,001 AP Macau MO 2,158 AP Laos LA 1,370 AP Lebanon LB 1,278 AP Kyrgyzstan KG 1,127 AP Kuwait KW 1,071 AP Azerbaijan AZ 1,046 AP Marshall Islands MH 912 AP Palestine PS 897 AP Brunei BN 815 AP Syria SY 677 AP Oman OM 566 AP Qatar QA 544 AP Sri Lanka LK 489 AP Turkmenistan TM 370 AP Myanmar (Burma) MM 362 AP Yemen YE 190 AP Maldives MV 133 AP Tajikistan TJ 109 AP Afghanistan AF 85 AP East Timor TL 63 AP Papua New Guinea PG 56 AP Vanuatu VU 51 AP Bhutan BT 27 AP Fiji FJ 23 AP Samoa (western) WS 10 AP Palau PW 7 AP Tonga TO 5 AP Cook Islands CK 2 AP Niue NU 2 AP Micronesia FM 1 AP Kiribati KI 1 AP Korea (North) KP 1 There are approximately 32,980 identified web hosting providers so far and they account for 196,608,845 gTLD websites out of 197,786,326 websites (99.4%). The providers of the remaining 1,177,481 websites are still being checked. Many of these are smaller resellers. There is also another feature of developing markets in that the local phone and telco companies become the first generation of ISPs and providers. People will also host websites on their ISP connection. The figures for China and Hong Kong might look a bit strange. Some of the large Chinese Cloud hosting operations and Chinese and Hong Kong resellers use US flagged IP addresses. The Chinese market also has a much larger ccTLD (CN) market. China has approximatley 15.96 million gTLD registrations and most of the websites of those domain names are on US flagged IPs. Hong Kong has a large number of websites on IP addresses that were originally allocated to the African region. Some of the countries in the AP region have large numbers of gTLD websites and no ICANN registrars. Their gTLD regisrtation activity is 100% outsourced.

1.

the absence or scarcity of locally accredited ICANN registrars, and

Originally, Network Solutions was the only registrar for .COM (and .NET and .ORG). There was a change to a multiple registrar system. The problem is that the requirements for accreditation were defined then and in a very different Internet market. I think that there is a requirement for a $70,000 line of credit for a prospective registrar. That is not feasible for a lot of small resellers and web developers. I am not sure that it was even based on any economic analysis at the time. It created a kind of two tier domain name sales business with the registrars and their resellers. By the mid 2000s, the ccTLDs started to compete with the gTLDs. The registrar requirements for the ccTLDs are often more attuned to their local markets so web developers and resellers often become registrars in their local ccTLD rather than ICANN accredited registrars. And this has cascaded to such an extent that the gTLDs have become "legacy" TLDs in many markets with the local ccTLD being larger than the number of locally registered gTLDs. The .COM is still the top TLD for a global market. At a local level, other than the US market, it is competing with the local ccTLD.

2.

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.

Apart from scraping all WHOIS data, the commonest way (pre-GDPR) of estimating market share for countries was to take a sample of domain names and check the country field of the registrant. In an ideal situation, as expected by some, WHOIS data was properly formatted and accurate. In reality, people will intentionally obscure their data for all sorts of reasons. They might even put a two character code for a local province or region in to the country field instead of the code for the country. That's the measurement problem. The economic problem for gTLDs in developing markets is that the gTLDs are not seen as being local in the same way as the local ccTLD. As the ccTLD grows, people increasingly think of it as being *their* TLD. The .COM has immediate recognition but other legacy gTLDs have much smaller registration numbers. People may recognise .ORG more than .NET. The 2012 round of new gTLDs had this recognition problem in that they depended on the registrars and resellers to promote them. (A big mistake. registrars and resellers promote what sells.) Some registries, especially some of the city and regional gTLDs, were very good at promoting their gTLDs. There is a very good economic reason for that and it is the same reason why ccTLDs are so effective. The market for those geo gTLDs was concentrated in geographical or linguistically. This is also why IDN gTLDs are more like ccTLDs than gTLDs. ICANN's gTLD registrar model was great for the much smaller Internet of the 1990s. It is too late to change it now for the 2026 round and the real driving force for some of the geographically or linguistically focused 2026 gTLDs will be the resellers in those markets.

A practical complementary approach may be to introduce a *Trusted Local Business Verification Layer*, operating alongside (not instead of) registrars and registries.

It is an interesting idea. The ccTLDs will have the advantage of being associated with the country in a way that most gTLDs are not. That is one of the most effective sales tools for ccTLDs in that they can claim to be local and more trustworthy than the gTLDs. Some of them use it in their marketing.

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:

The hardest part would be getting all the interested parties to agree. Each of them will have their own reasons for pushing themselves as being in charge of such a venture.

demonstrate genuine local market engagement,

One of the biggest mistakes made in the 2012 round by some registries and their advisors was underestimating the sheer hard work, expertise and money necessary to get a new TLD established. Some of the claims that I read in media during the 2012 round made it clear that expertise and knowledge about what it takes to establish and grow a TLD was in very short supply while there was a glut of snakeoil. The registries, the registrars and the resellers all play their parts in promoting a new TLD. Successful TLDs often build a community as well as being locally engaged.

distinguish legitimate local use from speculative registrations, and

Speculative registrations are an important indication of interest in a TLD. They are a gamble on the success of a TLD when they appear in a newly launched TLD. There are two main examples of what can go wrong with a new TLD when specuative activity becomes a problem. The first, obviously, is the .EU ccTLD fiasco. The people advising the European Commission didn't seem to understand the domain name industry. The European Commission awarded the contract to run the ccTLD to a small ccTLD registry (with a few other ccTLD registries as part of the consortium) that had no obvious experience in running a gTLD. The .EU ccTLD was effectively a gTLD with 27 different languages. A few hours after the ccTLD opened for general registration, the registrations backend fell over. It also lauched with no transfer mechanism in place so that people couldn't sell and transfer domain names to each other. The ccTLD was absolutely plundered by non-EU speculators to such an extent that demand, other than brand protection, collapsed. It never recovered. Twenty years later, the .EU ccTLD typically has less than 5% of the domain name markets of most EU countries. It is not a First Choice TLD and it never became a replacement for the .COM in the EU market. The main axis for EU markets is the local ccTLD and .COM. These two TLDs generally represent 80% or more of the local EU country markets. Many of the domain names registered speculatively were later deleted. The .EU fiasco was the result of unrealistic expectations, low industry knowledge and poor execution. Properly executed, the .EU ccTLD could have been a viable alternative to .COM in the European Union. The second example was Uniregistry's 2012 round gTLDs. It demonstrated the importance of having some speculative activity in a new TLD. Many of the "good" speculative domain names were registered via a registry affiliated registrar (this feature had been approved before the 2012 round launched). That actually reduced the demand for some of these gTLDs and a flood of registrations did not happen. This is because speculative sctiviy actually drives some of the demand in the launch of a new TLD for the first six months or so. Speculation gets people interested and helps drive demand. Many speculative registrations will be deleted without ever having a developed website. A Junk Dump typically follows the launch of a new TLD a year later. The attention that a reasonable leel speculation gains for a TLD helps get it noticed and builds awareness. This case was an example of somewhat unrealistic expectations, too much one-sided knowlege (which domain names would have been valuable in .COM) and a collision with the brick wall reality of the domain name marketplace. Low awareness = low demand = low development = low registration volume. Without development and usage in a TLD, domain names have no value beyond the registration fee. Specuative registrations depend on that development and usage even more than the registries. Too much speculation in a new TLD depresses development. That is why the management of some registries don't want excessive speculation. Some people may think that all speculation in a new TLD is bad. Its not. In moderation, it helps the new TLD to build a stock of initial registrations. Some 2012 round new gTLD registries were more careful and only retained a smaller number of potentially high value domain names for auction. To consider all speculative registrations as being bad is dangerously simplistic for a registry because they provide unpaid marketing for the TLD. Those registrants will often be promoting the domain names that they have for sale and that's unpiad marketing for the TLD.

*

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.

ICANN isn't really s player at the local level though it might help with connecting people. It is up to the registries, registrars and resellers to do the hard work. A local approach with local engagement would be much more effective. The profit margin on domain names is low and most of the organisations that would potentially be interested will also be selling other services such as web hosting, web development, brand protection, and search engine marketing. Civil society organisations will probably want some involvement too.

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.

It might be a good idea to establish what kind of local trust and verifcation schemes already exist. Some of them may be deeply involved with the local ccTLDs. Regards...jmcc -- ********************************************************** John McCormac * e-mail: jmcc@hosterstats.com MC2 * web: http://www.hosterstats.com/ 22 Viewmount * Domain Registrations Statistics Waterford * Domnomics - the business of domain names Ireland * https://amzn.to/2OPtEIO IE * Skype: hosterstats.com ********************************************************** -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. www.avast.com

Local gTLD web hosting markets for EUR region December 2025 EUR Germany DE 17,602,324 EUR United Kingdom UK 2,014,484 EUR France FR 3,494,459 EUR Netherlands NL 2,215,517 EUR Italy IT 1,692,539 EUR Russian Federation RU 945,119 EUR Spain ES 1,055,110 EUR Sweden SE 387,927 EUR Switzerland CH 407,725 EUR Poland PL 269,818 EUR Czech Republic CZ 233,777 EUR Ukraine UA 140,638 EUR Finland FI 381,525 EUR Denmark DK 481,864 EUR Estonia EE 34,865 EUR Norway NO 171,762 EUR Bulgaria BG 170,230 EUR Portugal PT 123,880 EUR European Union EU 71,325 EUR Romania RO 68,799 EUR Croatia HR 29,829 EUR Latvia LV 30,549 EUR Moldova MD 24,360 EUR Serbia RS 21,172 EUR Iceland IS 15,954 EUR Slovakia SK 84,215 EUR Greece GR 16,771 EUR Malta MT 1,302 EUR Curacao CW 7,165 EUR Belgium BE 142,755 EUR Macedonia MK 531 EUR Slovenia SI 31,439 EUR Virgin Islands (UK) VG 2,037,384 EUR Lithuania LT 1,606,990 EUR Ireland IE 408,142 EUR Austria AT 208,655 EUR Hungary HU 78,108 EUR Luxembourg LU 39,074 EUR Bosnia and Herzegovina BA 48,147 EUR Belarus BY 10,807 EUR Monaco MC 3,807 EUR Jersey JE 1,391 EUR Anguilla AI 2,747 EUR Isle of Man IM 1,472 EUR Liechtenstein LI 395 EUR Albania AL 1,048 EUR Cayman Islands KY 1,015 EUR Andorra AD 774 EUR Gibraltar GI 701 EUR San Marino SM 571 EUR Guernsey GG 300 EUR Montenegro ME 359 EUR Aaland Islands AX 334 EUR Reunion RE 181 EUR New Caledonia NC 145 EUR Guadeloupe GP 77 EUR Bouvet Island BV 124 EUR Martinique MQ 59 EUR Bermuda BM 95 EUR French Guiana GF 42 EUR French Polynesia PF 79 EUR Aruba AW 63 EUR Vatican City VA 21 EUR Faroe Islands FO 21 EUR St Pierre and Miquelon PM 13 EUR Greenland GL 14 EUR Turks and Caicos Islands TC 13 EUR Mayotte YT 2 EUR Kosovo XK 3 EUR Falkland Islands FK 1 EUR St Helena SH 0 EUR Wallis and Futuna WF 0 Local gTLD web hosting markets for NA region December 2025 NA United States US 130,230,000 NA Canada CA 6,142,530 NA Puerto Rico PR 3,240 NA Guam GU 139 NA Virgin Islands (US) VI 77 NA Northern Mariana Islands MP 33 NA US minor outlying islands UM 5 NA Samoa (American) AS 2 Some countries with large transnational web hosting providers and CLoud hosting have larger numbers of gTLD websites. Large Chinese Cloud hosters use US IP ranges qne Singaporean (SG) ranges. A lot of this is due to the shortage of IPv4 addresses. Most European countries have very strong ccTLDs which are often two or more times the size of the locally registered .COM domain names. The transnational web hosting providers can often skew the figures for some countries especially when Parking is taken into consideration. Some web hosting providers are using Cloud hosting for their services along with their own web hosting ranges. Most of the Cloud hosters provide details on the country of their IP addresses (Geofeed) so it is not unusual to see large Cloud operations having IPs associated with many countries. Some of the larger web hosting providers also have IP ranges associated with countries outside their main country. Some IP addresses are flagged as EU. They are often the ranges of large hosters. (Sorry for the delay in posting.) Regards...jmcc -- ********************************************************** John McCormac * e-mail: jmcc@hosterstats.com MC2 * web: http://www.hosterstats.com/ 22 Viewmount * Domain Registrations Statistics Waterford * Domnomics - the business of domain names Ireland * https://amzn.to/2OPtEIO IE * Skype: hosterstats.com ********************************************************** -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. www.avast.com

On 13/01/2026 05:40, Maureen Hilyard wrote:

Dear John

For me this information is really valuable to start conversations with our SIDS communities about how much they value their cctld and where they see gtlds featuring in their futures.

It puts the ccTLDs and gTLDs in a different light, Maureen, the problem for the SIDS is infrastructure, market size and conditioning. For a small ccTLD, the gTLDs will always occupy most of the market until the ccTLD gains a critical mass. It cannot do that without being available to register on various registrars and resellers popular in the country. People have almost been conditioned to go for the easy option and the way that a gTLD domain name can be registered and live in minutes makes it far more attractive than a domain name in a one in a ccTLD that can take a day or more befpre the domain name goes live. Some of the SIDS ccTLD managers may have been unlucky to be appointed because nobody else wanted the job. There may also be the well intentioned academics who approach running a ccTLD as a kind of Civil Society issue rather than as a business one. The gTLD registries are in business (mostly) and they are focused primarily on selling domain names. There is also a difference in perception and that gets back to the stats. Without the stats, a SIDS ccTLD may appear to be competing with a gTLD with over 158 million registrations (.COM). Consdered like that, a ccTLD hasn't much of a chance. The reality is that a ccTLD is competing with the domnant gTLD in its market for the early phase of the market's deelopment and it is only competing with the numbers of locally registred gTLDs. The problem with that is that the country breakdowns of registrations are rarely published by the gTLD registries. The GDPR fiasco has made it much more difficult to measure these figures. WHOIS privacy and dubious though syntactically correct WHOIS data intentionally makes it more difficult. Thus large gTLDs with millions of registrations may look to be unbeatable. The reality is that they are not because every gTLD has its own geography. It is up to the ccTLD to establish itself in its market. The ccTLD isn't competing with the gTLDs. It is only competing with the numbers of those gTLDs registered in their market. It is very different for a gTLD. If it has a global market rather than a geographical or linguistic one, it is competing against all other gTLDs and ccTLDs. Marketing for a ccTLD has a depth problem whereas the marketing for a gTLD has a width problem. The ccTLD market is geographically concentrated (depth). A gTLD market is often more global. The marketing for a ccTLD can be concentrated. The marketing for a gTLD is much more complicated because it often involves many country level markets. That is a lot more expensive than marketing a ccTLD so the gTLD registries often rely on the registrars and resellers to do the hard work.

SIDS performance wrt their cctlds is quite pitiful really, but as we found when .au called meeting of those Pacific managers who were attending the APNIC meeting in Wellington, last year. They have no idea about how to manage the cctld they have been given charge of, nor how to cope with the increasing security issues etc. Even though many belong to regional NOGs, Im sure that they get upskilled on the technical side of their ISP management but as for customer needs and service for websites, registrants are left on their own, because our small ISP managers themselves are not coping and aren't offering the security services new website owners need to make their services trustworthy. Its a never ending cycle.

The SIDS ccTLD managers were in much the same position as some of the gTLD applicants in the 2012 round who were relying on snakeoil predictions from people who hadn't a clue about what it takes to establish and grow a TLD. The academically sound economic study sponsored by ICANN had certain problems with the reality of the Internet. It missed the importance of redirects in a domain name market. Because of the way that a domain name's brand works, a registrant will maintain its previous domain name and redirect to its new domain name. This is not strictly product substitution because, after the .COM and .NET pair, the most common registrations pair is a .COM and the equivalent .ccTLD. A new registrant may register their .ccTLD and the equivalent .COM. There is another metric that can indicate the success of a ccTLD and that's how unique the registrations are in that a percentage of the registrations will have no equivalent in other TLDs. As a ccTLD becomes more successful in its market, the number of people only registering in that ccTLD increases. They don't need to register a .COM or other gTLD. There is a measurable point in a country level market where a ccTLD begins to dominate its market. That is when the web redirects between ccTLD and gTLD websites change from being majority ccTLD to gTLD websites to being majority gTLD to ccTLD. The real danger for a ccTLD is that it could end up a Potemkin village with just government websites and usage. Some of the ISPs may not be the best choice to drive a ccTLD unless they can tie the domain names into mail services and web services. The SIDS ccTLDs are often at the same level as countries in Europe in the early 1990s. The local telcos and new ISPs dominated the domain name market then because it was difficult to register a domain name and hosting, connectivity and traffic was expensive. The ISPs are essential for the early phase of the market but the ccTLD (and gTLD) managers need to reach out to the web developers and existing resellers. Getting them onside is important. This is also where ICANN's 1990s registrar model can be used against gTLDs because the chances are that there will be no local ICANN accredited registrar. Even though domain names are commoditised, many businesses and people may want to buy locally. The local web developers and resellers are important links in that chain. Some tie-ins with large DIY website and e-commerce web hosting providers could also help make a ccTLD more popular with people who want to build their own website. The most important thing for a new TLD (ccTLD or gTLD) after basic awareness, is getting "shelf space" on registrars and resellers to make it easy for people to register and use the domain names. This is very different from the "Field of Dreams" fallacy that drove a lot of the 2012 round (if you build it, they will come). Successful ccTLDs build a community and get people identifying with it as being *their* TLD. That's probably the most difficult challenge for an TLD manager. They have to find a reason and a motivation for people to use the TLD.

But we have to start somewhere.  Thank you for your valuable information.

Building a successful TLD is much harder than it looks. There are no overnight successes. Regards...jmcc -- ********************************************************** John McCormac * e-mail: jmcc@hosterstats.com MC2 * web: http://www.hosterstats.com/ 22 Viewmount * Domain Registrations Statistics Waterford * Domnomics - the business of domain names Ireland * https://amzn.to/2OPtEIO IE * Skype: hosterstats.com ********************************************************** -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. www.avast.com

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<http://www.hosterstats.com/> 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<https://amzn.to/2OPtEIO> IE * Skype: hosterstats.com ********************************************************** -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://ind01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.avast.com%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cgopal%40annauniv.edu%7C0d2781f8e98f4c56c0e408de4e35c303%7C6e804f2402094dcdac8997525eddbd30%7C0%7C0%7C639034191362049280%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C80000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=XSIpXbI2BoOfnsI08%2Bu%2F%2BtNN92oZTrXMrhLCiTrgQoE%3D&reserved=0<http://www.avast.com/> _______________________________________________ CPWG mailing list -- cpwg@icann.org To unsubscribe send an email to cpwg-leave@icann.org _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://ind01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.icann.org%2Fprivacy%2Fpolicy&data=05%7C02%7Cgopal%40annauniv.edu%7C0d2781f8e98f4c56c0e408de4e35c303%7C6e804f2402094dcdac8997525eddbd30%7C0%7C0%7C639034191362065099%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C80000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=AAKCs4gU0rHKm44SvGu3hMa4IDyWe%2FfUnoz67LsvlQ0%3D&reserved=0<https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy>) and the website Terms of Service (https://ind01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.icann.org%2Fprivacy%2Ftos&data=05%7C02%7Cgopal%40annauniv.edu%7C0d2781f8e98f4c56c0e408de4e35c303%7C6e804f2402094dcdac8997525eddbd30%7C0%7C0%7C639034191362080665%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C80000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=kdYOMBnE%2Fkx6ltAx1VFEMhUpkA46jk%2FOt5X%2FMDv8Bh4%3D&reserved=0<https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos>). 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