We don’t often highlight domain sales on here, but this is an exceptional offer for anyone interested in the Ukrainian market. Kiev.com, will go on sale at the Domainfest Global 2009 to be held at the Renaissance Hotel, Hollywood, LA, January 28-30th.

Kiev is the capital capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. As of April 2007, the population of Kiev stood at about 2.7 million inhabitants.

I’ll report back with the final sale price. Even in the current economic climate I would still expect a premium geographical domain like this to go for 6 figures.

Technorati Tags: Domainfest, Domains, Geo Domains, Kiev, Ukraine

According to Interfax, Googles proposed deal to puchase the contexual ad provider, Begun.ru, for $140m was shot down by the Russian Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) on Thursday.

The reason cited has been a lack of clear information on the “individuals who can exert influence on the activity of the Google group, as well as a list of persons belonging to the Google group, including those outside Russia”. Without this information, the FAS board do not feel they can “objectively judge the impact on competition in the market for Internet search in our country”. Plus they have “concerns” that competitive conditions will be made worse by reducing the number of large players.

Ever since the deal was announced industry experts have speculated that Begun’s future is in doubt, considering that Google has such a well developed contexual ad system and brand of its own (Adwords). The value in Begun seems to lie with their contextual contracts, trained support staff and business customers. Rumours have also been circulated that Google was planning to provide organic results to Rambler as part of the deal. Either of these moves would effectively remove players from the Russian search scene.

“We’re very disappointed”, said Google PR Director in Russia, Alla Zabrovskaya. “We continue to believe that this transaction has improved the range of opportunities for Russian Internet users, advertisers, as well as the development of the industry as a whole. We now await the decision in the hands of the FAS and then will decide on our future actions”.

This is a massive blow to Google in the Russian market, which they recently estimated to be worth $1bn by 2011. This purchase would have consolated their position against market leaders Yandex. Begun.ru provides contexual advertising streams to a range of high profile sites, notably Rambler, the oldest search engine in Russia.

According to LiveInternet, Yandex holds 44.7%, against Google with 34.6%. Rambler has seen their market share plummet this year to 7.1% from 17% this time last year, despite the appointment of Ex-Yahoo! European Head Mark Opzoomer. Mail.ru, the other major player in Russian search has seen a rise in marketshare to 7.7%. Having cancelled a deal to carry Google’s contextual adverts in January of 2007, they have since been in partnership with Yandex.

So what does this FAS ruling mean? According to RosFinCom, things may not be so bad. The deal may still go through once Google meets the demands of the FAS board. “Finam” Vladislav Kochetkov agreed, “In our view, there is a great likelihood that the transaction will soon take place”. Not so, says Alexander Kuznetsov, an analyst at ING Wholesale Banking, who suggests the FAS is just looking for formal reasons to reject the deal. He maybe right.

As Kuznetsov points out, the marketshare Google will gain is not such a monopoly. He proposes that together they would only occupy 21% of the market. LiveInternet would put that nearer to 42% against Yandex with 53%. However you can find much higher percentages in the Russian telecommunications industry that have failed to draw regulator concern. Russian industry is defined by monopolies.

If this is not due to the marketshare, could it be more to do with Google’s position as a foreign company? Russian lawmakers have been taking an increasing interest in the Internet and pushed to have it included as a sector “strategically important to national security” in a law passed this April. That would have required foreign investors wishing to purchase more than 50% of a Russian company related to the Internet to obtain the approval of the Russian Government.

The bill was amended after intervention by President Medvedev but the list of strategic sectors still includes television/radio broadcasting and publishing. Companies that hold a dominant position in providing internet and telephone services are also included. In those cases, the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service can apply “limitations”. The FAS definition of “dominant” is defined for us by Russian Law News:

Article 5 of the New Law states that unless otherwise demonstrated, a business entity with more than 50% market share is presumed dominant; and less than 35% market share is generally not dominant. However, a group of up to three market leaders may be deemed dominant if they have aggregate market share of 50%; and the same applies to a group of up to five market leaders with aggregate market share of 70% (unless one of them has a market share below 8%)

Are we currently seeing the first “limitations” placed on Google by the FAS, to prevent them developing a dominant position in Runet? The Russian authorities can be deeply suspicious of foreign companies and publicised connections between Google and the CIA are unlikely to work in their favour. It is certainly a strange request by the FAS to know more about “individuals who can exert influence on the activity of the Google group”.

Government protection would give the home-grown engine Yandex a significant advantage and prevent the market domination Google has enjoyed across US and Europe. If their advancement in Russia has just become political, this may prove to be the greatest challenge the US search giant has faced to date.

Technorati Tags: Begun, FAS, Google, Monolpoly, Russia, Russian Anti-Monopoly Service, Yandex

Bulgaria has entered an official application today to ICANN for the IDN extension .бг (.bg).

ICANN had raised the issue of IDN extensions at their recent Paris Conference, with a view to introducing a “limited number of non-contentious IDN ccTLDs, while an overall long-term IDN ccTLD policy is being developed” (DomainNews).

A representative of Bulgaria’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) presented Paul Tumi, President of ICANN with their domain application in Paris. This follows reports that the Russian President is supporting the campaign in Russia for the .рф (.rf) domain name.

Technorati Tags: BG, Bulgaria, Domains, ICANN, IDN, RF, Russia

Dmitry Medvedev, President of the Russian Federation has thrown his weight behind the campaign for a new Cyrillic IDN for the country. The Moscow Times reports that this is part of a new drive to promote Russian as a global language.

He said 300 million people worldwide used Russian media and that a Cyrillic domain name would be a key part of raising the importance of the language, a task he said was his personal priority as president.

We must do everything we can to make sure that we achieve in the future a Cyrillic Internet domain name — it is a pretty serious thing. It is a symbol of the importance of the Russian language and Cyrillic. … And I think we have a rather high chance of achieving such a decision.

Medvedev is the most tech-savvy president Russia has had to date. He has publicly used his mobile phone to connect to the Internet and claims to surf online every morning for news (ED: Feel free to comment here Dmitry).

The body responsible for granting Russia’s wishes on this subject is ICANN, the organisation responsible for assigning domain extensions. They are discussing the possibility of true IDN domain extensions at their meeting in Paris later this month. Russia has proposed that it be allowed the .рф (.rf) extension, standing for “Russian Federation”.

If Russian is successful it will become the first country to have a true IDN. While other IDN domain registrations are currently available from some gTLD and ccTLD Registries, the extensions themselves have remained in the Latin character set.

However ICANN are likely to bring up the unresolved dispute over the .SU (Soviet Union) extension. After many requests to the operators to “to freeze new registrations”, this extension is still being actively promoted.

In this authors opinion, there is a good chance that the Russians will accept decommissioning of .SU in exchange for the new IDN extension. Such high profile support for the campaign would instantly move obstacles at the RU/SU operator. It may even impress ICANN, as an indication that their future talks and position in Russia would be taken much more seriously.

With that in mind, it would seem a strategic move to register .SU domains now. There is a good chance that a condition of decommissioning .SU would be a migration of the users to this new domain. Holding a registration could ensure your rights in the new extension without needing to further apply.

Technorati Tags: Dmitry Medvedev, Domaining, Domains, IDN, International Domain Names, RF, Russia, Russian, Soviet Union, SU

The Russian Registry is today asking it’s customer base to vote on the possibility of a new .РФ (.RF) IDN domain name. As they write, ICANN is looking at the possibility of establishing top-level domains using international characters. The final decision on this matter will be taken at the 32nd International Public ICANN Meeting held in Paris this June 22-26 2008.

As the Russian Registry continues, if ICANN approve the introduction of this domain, Russia could become one of the first countries to have a Cyrillic national domain. However they need to show popularity for this extension so ask their customers to vote at their website. Voting will continue until June 3rd, after which they will announce the results.

There was no mention of the current dispute over the .SU (Soviet Union) extension, which ICANN wishes to see closed. At one point it was suggested that .РФ (.RF) IDN could be a replacement for .SU but it now appears that the Russian Registry is angling for all three domains.

Interestingly, the Russian Registry released an article on ICANN yesterday discussing the relationship between the organisation and the US administration. It suggests that some corporate users are, “concerned about the slow movement on some issues, including the introduction of IDN. This is causing an increased interest around the world in alternative, independent addressing systems, which may disturb the integrity of the Internet”. One solution, the article concludes, “could be to transfer the functions of ICANN to the UN”.

Technorati Tags: Domain Names, Domains, ICANN, IDN, IDN RF, RU, Russia

ICANN is still attempting to delete the obsolete SU (Soviet Union) extension but having little success. While they have managed to decommission the .YU (Yogoslavia) extension successfully last year, they are finding rebellion among Russian webmasters, ISPs and the Registry itself.

To summerise the dispute so far, September saw ICANN release a statement urging “the current .SU operators to make it clear to the .SU registrants the issues surrounding the domain, as well as to freeze new registrations until its future is clear”.

In response, the .SU Registry announced an 80% price cut to the .SU domain, bringing it into line with .RU (Russia) pricing and the proposed launch of an IDN (international) version of the domain extension. Not exactly the reaction ICANN must have been hoping for.

ICANN immediately dispatched a team to Russia to discuss the crisis. After meetings which they described as “successful“, they returned, citing a letter from from Alexei Platonov and Alexei Soldatov of RosNIIROS. The letter indicated a willingness to talk about the issue of decommissioning but saw this within a timeframe of 10-15 years, not the 1-2 years ICANN envisioned. However, first they would fully investigate the possibility of keeping the extension running and obtaining special “exceptionally reserved” status for the 2-letter ISO code (similar to .EU which does not pertain to any one country).

This option has all but been ruled out by ICANN themselves, as unlike the European Union (.EU) the Soviet Union had ceased to exist in 1992. At that time it was removed from the United Nations SO 3166-1 list which holds two letter codes for every nation and forms the basis for ICANN’s designations. The Russian operators weren’t about to let a little semantic argument like that get in their way.

The Russians were a little less candid on the point of freezing new registrations but did agree to inform the SU community about the talks and possibility of future migration.

That conversation has been curiously absent in the Russian press. However there have been many positive quotes from the PR department of the Russian Registry, talking of the future for the domain and of ICANN backing down over the issue. It was even proposed that Russia receive a third extension, .RF (Russian Federation) in exchange for letting the .SU decommission.

As promised though, on November 1st 2007, the price of SU was slashed. While there were only 10’000 subscribers at the beginning of that year, there are currently over 45’000.

Now a new volley has been fired, as SU opened the sunrise period for IDN registrations today and made their proposition a reality. Far from winding down the extension, they are actively promoting it and expect, according to their own figures, to see 30-40% new registrations over the coming months.

According to Andrei Vorobyov, Head of Public Relations for the Regional Network Information Center (RU-Center), who operate the domain, “In the future, we have plans to expand the number of languages used in the IDN .SU domain, including all the national languages of the people of Russia.”

Al the actions by the Russian Registry point to a deliberate promotion of the domain against the direct wishes of ICANN. This promotion has caused their user numbers to spike dramatically, giving weight to their arguments to keep the domain. SU now has by far the highest subscriber count of any extension queued for deletion. All eyes are on ICANN now to see how they deal with this latest snub to their authority. At the moment, it seems there is little the US-based organization can do to stop the Russians.

Technorati Tags: ICANN, IDN Domains, RU Domains, Russia, SU Domains