2013 01-10 uof-o_pres_bh

Byron HollandPresident and CEO

January 2013

Canadian Internet Registration Authority

Agenda

1. What CIRA does and how2. Current Activities3. CIRA History and Governance4. Internet History and Governance5. Questions?


Mission

CIRA’s mission is to foster the development of .CA as a key public resource for all Canadians by providing stable, secure and trusted domain name services, and by taking a leadership role in shaping Canada’s Internet for the benefit of .CA domain holders.


Vision

CIRA’s vision is to be a world-class Internet Registry that is recognized and valued by the Internet community and Canadians.


Values• We believe that fairness, transparency and high ethical

standards are the foundation of our culture.• CIRA is committed to a collaborative team environment

that seeks continuous improvement and breakthrough ideas through innovation.

• At CIRA we are committed to exceeding stakeholder expectations through excellence in operations, service delivery and engagement.

• We believe in having a positive influence in the communities where we provide service and do business.


Primary Roles of CIRA

Ensure effective stewardship of .CA:

1. Operate DNS in 100% uptime environment

2. Operate .CA Registry

3. Manage .CA brand

4. Develop and implement policies that

support Canada's Internet community

5. Represent .CA interests internationally


Who is CIRA?• The registry that operates the country code Top-Level

Domain for Canada (the .CA ccTLD).• A thick Registry that currently has over 2 million

domain names under management.• CIRA processes:

– 250,000,000 DNS queries per day.– 5,000 registration requests per day.– 4,000,000 WHOIS queries per day.


Who is CIRA?

• Staff of 60 full time employees • Revenues of $15.6 million in FY12• Has about 150 certified Registrars• Has approximately 1.2M Registrants and approximately

15,000 Members


CIRA History and Governance

CIRA History

• University of British Columbia.• Canadian Domain Name Consultative Committee .• Founding Board of Directors.• Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA).



CIRA Governance

• Not-for-profit corporation• Member-driven• 1999 Binder Letter to CIRA:

– Recognizes CIRA as the administrator of the .CA domain space.

– Requests a structure predicated upon:• Conducting CIRA's activities in an open and

transparent manner that ensures wide public access to all relevant information.

• Following fair and sound business practices.


CIRA Governance – Cont’d

• Binder Letter to CIRA cont’d:– Ensuring an appropriate balance of representation,

accountability and diversity on the Board of Directors for all categories of stakeholders.

– Applying for domain names being as quick and easy as applying for domain names in other top level domains, and priced competitively.

– Reducing conflicts between persons granted domain names and other Fights holders, including trade-marks or business names.

– A system that facilitates and encourages entry for new players including registrars.


Canadian Market Share

Source: Dr. Zook Q2 2012 Canadian Domain Names Report, .CA Registry Database

Q2 2007

Q3 2007

Q4 2007

Q1 2008

Q2 2008

Q3 2008

Q4 2008

Q1 2009

Q2 2009

Q3 2009

Q4 2009

Q1 2010

Q2 2010

Q3 2010

Q4 2010

Q1 2011

Q2 2011

Q3 2011

Q4 2011

Q1 2012

Q2 2012

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

62.5%

53.6%

20.4%

30.3%

com Market Sharenet Market Shareorg Market Shareinfo Market Sharebiz Market Shareca Market Share

Five Year Average Growth Rates Specific TLDs

Source: CIRA Benchmarking Research, Competitive Analysis Matrix

fr au br ca nl se uk no us de eu cn

All c

cTLD

s

com org

net

Oth

er g

TLDs

All g

TLDs

-20%

-10%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Global TLD Growth 2007-2012

TLDs

Perc

enta

ge G

row

th

CIRA’s Strategic Objectives


What CIRA does:

.CA Product:• Develops and maintains its own registry software

supporting two interface formats.• Recently redesigned registry software and related

policies. • Owns and operates its registration primary and backup

data centres.• Operates the To Be Released (TBR) system.• Operates WHOIS service.• Operates a worldwide DNS secondary infrastructure.


Channel and Customer Relations:• Certifies and re-certifies Registrars.• Manages and enforces the Registrar Agreement.• Manages major Certified Registrar issues (financials,

sales, going out of business, etc.).• Holds regular consultations and meetings with

Registrars.• Manages and enforces the Registrant Agreement.• Handles Registrant complaints.


What CIRA does:

What CIRA does:

Governance:• Runs annual elections for the Board of Directors.• Holds a formal Annual General Meeting (AGM).• Publishes an annual report.• Publicly publishes the minutes of its Board meetings

and audited financial statements.


What CIRA does:

Other: • Operates the CIRA Domain Name Dispute Resolution

Process (CDRP).• Operates bilingually.• Participates in relevant national and international

groups, initiatives and fora.


How We Do It:

• Three year strategic planning cycles.• Engagement with the Canadian Internet

community.• Participation in international technical and

policy forums.• A high-performing team located in Ottawa.


CIRA Policies• Canadian Presence Requirements:

– For Registrants.– For Registrars.

• CIRA Dispute Resolution Policy (CDRP). • WHOIS Policy.• Low barrier to entry for Registrars.• Competitive Registry.• Protection of the Registrant by the Registry.• Registrants are the members of the corporation.


Current Activities

Internationalized Domain Names

• French-accented characters, such as û, à, ç, ë, and œ.

• Available since January 13, 2013.• Every French character variant of a .CA domain is

part of a bundle. (For example, the bundle for cira.ca would include variants such as cirà.ca, çira.ca, cîra.ca, çïrâ.ca, and all other combination of accented French and standard ASCII characters)


Product Improvements

DNSSEC• RFCs for adding digital signatures to DNS data.• Provides authenticity of data.• Adds secure delegations from parent to child,

creating trust hierarchies (“path of trust”).• Provides provable denial of existence.• Compromised name servers detected and ignored.• DNS data manipulation detected and ignored.• DNSSEC enabled for .CA in January 2013.


Canadian Internet Forum• CIF process began in 2009. • National dialogue with Canadians on Internet-related

issues.• Bottom-up, grass roots, multi-stakeholder process. • Third CIF began in November 2012. • National event: Ottawa, February 28, 2013 in Ottawa.• Online discussion forum.• Output presented to the Internet Governance Forum. • Cif.cira.ca


Community Investment Program (CIP)

• Initiatives ultimately work toward providing benefits to Canadian Internet users.

• CIP is funded through the annual operating planning process.

• Initiatives will encompass a range of activities.• Activities will be both CIRA or 3rd Party

developed/managed and fall within the scope of our corporate objects.


Community Investment Program (CIP)


Continue to fund Internet related initiatives internally that are close to core of business

Consider supporting the establishment of a Canadian organization

Launch an “arms length” Advisory Committee of the Board to administer and distribute funds to third parties in support of Internet Related Activities

Three Overall Thrusts

Internet History and Governance

History of the Internet

• Began in 1960s and 1970s as a tool for research and military use.

• By 1990s commercial services began showing up.

• 10 years ago 100 million people were online.

• Today 2 billion people are online – and growing.


Internet Governance

• Internet Society (ISOC), Internet Architecture Board (IAB), and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)

• International Telecommunications Union (ITU)

• Internet Governance Forum (IGF)– First Canadian IGF (CIF) - February 2011

• Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)


ICANN• Coordinates the Internet’s identifiers.• Responsible for IANA function.• Develops global internet naming policy• IDN ccTLDs (e.g. Chinese, Arabic, and Russian characters

instead of latin characters) available since November 2009 at first level: 12 IDN ccTLDs have been delegated, with several more pending delegation:– Egypt: مصر.– Tunisia: تونس.– Russian Federation: .рф

• New gTLDs (e.g. .sport, .music, .berlin) in 2013.• CIRA plays important role in ICANN policy development:

ccNSO, working groups.


ICANN Cont’d

↕CIRA


UN’s Role

Internet Governance Forum:• Multi-stakeholder format: governments, civil society,

academia, the technical community, and Internet users.• A forum for Internet-related discussions. International Telecommunication Union (ITU):• Coordinates and manages global telecommunications traffic. • Traditionally have had little to do with Internet traffic. • New treaty (International Telecommunications Regulations)

negotiated in October – included Internet-related provisions. Canada did not sign.


World Conference on Information Technology

• Conference of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in December 2012.

• Discuss the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs) for 1st time in 25 years.

• New ITRs include provisions that extend the ITU’s reach over the Internet.


World Conference on Information Technology

• Canada refused to sign, nor did 1/3 of member states.

• Contentious issues: – Secrecy surrounding proposals.– Definition of operating agency could include

ISPs. – Spam-related provisions.

• Possible creation of ‘two-tier Internet’.


Questions?

Byron HollandPresident and CEOCanadian Internet Registration Authority

(CIRA)

http://cira.caTwitter: @CIRA001 @CIRAnews1-877-860-1411


Documents

2013 01-10 uof-o_pres_bh