India is suspending domains with fake WHOIS
India is now officially entrusting its national ccTLD, dot .IN, to Neustar.
The technology services company announced the completion of the final steps to providing full back-end support to the .IN domain Registry, Nixi.
Some key points from the event:
- In August 2018 Neustar was awarded the contract to be Technical Service Provider (TSP) for the .IN ccTLD by the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), following a Request for Proposal process.
- Following the award and signing of the contract in October, work commenced immediately on preparing for the transition scheduled for 28 February, along with a maximum 48-hour maintenance period during which time access to the .IN Registry would be cut-off for new domain registrations, as well as updates to existing domains. The transition ran very smoothly and was completed at 00:01 UTC, March 01, 2019.
- With Neustar as Technical Service Provider, .IN will benefit from a number of upgrades and improvements, providing increased service to Registrar partners and all .IN domain Registrants and users. These include enabling end-to-end Registry web Portal language support for Indian Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs), allowing Registrars to provide IDNs in their local-language native script from registration all the way to management and reporting of IDNs.
Neustar, a premium sponsor of our publication, sent out the following press release:
Neustar Logs into Digital India as the New Technical Services Provider for the Country’s .IN Domain
March 1st, 2019, NEW DELHI, INDIA – Neustar Data Infotech (India) Private Limited, a subsidiary of Neustar®, Inc. (“Neustar”), today completed the transition of India’s .IN country code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) to Neustar’s Registry platform. With extensive experience in both India and with Registry operations, Neustar is poised to bring further growth, increased performance and security to the .IN domain for the benefit of all internet users.
Neustar was selected to be India’s new Registry services provider in August 2018 by the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), based on a highly competitive Request for Proposal (RFP) process designed to identify the provider that would best serve the needs of the .IN domain and India’s entire digital community. Among other service enhancements, Neustar vastly improves the ability to register Indian-language domains in native script by enabling end-to-end web portal language support.
Neustar has been working with NIXI for the last five months to undertake the significant work of migrating the .IN namespace to Neustar’s industry leading Registry platform. This includes extensive technical preparations and collaboration with government, industry and business stakeholders. Following these preparations, a total of two million .IN domain names were successfully migrated to Neustar’s Registry infrastructure in India.
According to a recent report released by India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (India’s Trillion-Dollar Digital Opportunity Report), “India is among the top three global economies in terms of the number of digital consumers. With 560 million internet subscriptions in 2018, up from 238.71 million in 2013, India is the second-largest subscription market in the world”. With this transition, the .IN domain is poised for its next phase of growth and will provide a secure, reliable domain that empowers millions of Indian businesses, brands and entrepreneurs.
Neustar Regional Director – Technical Services, Nitin Wali said, “We are very excited about the partnership with NIXI as we are convinced that .IN is uniquely positioned for significant growth within the Indian and global domain name market. Together, we are excited to cement .IN’s place as a national legacy of the Indian digital economy.”
According to Nicolai Bezsonoff, Vice President and General Manager of Neustar Registry Solutions, “With Neustar as a technical services provider, the .IN domain will benefit from a number of upgrades and improvements that support internet users, Registrars and other stakeholders.” He added, “We are honoured to partner with NIXI and are confident that together we can support all Indian internet users with a fast, secure and accessible .IN.”
Neustar is a global information services company with the largest DNS, DDoS mitigation and threat intelligence capabilities in the industry. In addition to .IN, Neustar operates the marketing and technical solutions for .US, .CO, .NYC and .BIZ top‐level domains, as well as more than 250 other TLDs for countries, cities, businesses and the world’s leading brands. The .IN domain is now backed by Neustar’s award-winning infrastructure, team and experience, which is always evolving with continuous investment and product innovation.
Shri Sanjay Goel, CEO NIXI & Joint Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India said, “Neustar’s capabilities and experience are well suited to supporting .IN in this time of innovation and growth.In seeking a new Registry provider for .IN, it was important to NIXI that we found a partner who is well respected in the industry and has a demonstrated history of professionalism, innovation, and integrity.”
“Neustar has a strong reputation in the domain name Registry space with extensive ccTLD experience. We look forward to working with Neustar over this next dynamic phase of our .IN namespace, to develop and provide enhanced and secure DNS services for all Indian internet users and stakeholders,” Mr. Goel added.
About Neustar
Neustar Data Infotech (India) Private Limited is a subsidiary of Neustar, Inc., a leading global information services provider driving the connected world forward with responsible identity resolution. As a company built on a foundation of Privacy by Design, Neustar is depended upon by the world’s largest corporations to help grow, guard and guide their businesses with the most complete understanding of how to connect people, places and things. Neustar’s unique, accurate and real-time identity system, continuously corroborated through billions of transactions, empowers critical decisions across our clients’ enterprise needs. More information is available at https://www.home.neustar.
