The Value of Being an ACTIVE CIRA Member

CIRA, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, is the official registry operator of the .CA country code Top-Level-Domain. Last week HEXONET had the opportunity to attend the annual CIRA Symposium and Annual General Meeting this year held in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The General Meeting was very well attended.  Many updates and metrics on growth of .CA were announced, as well as, some of the new initiatives that the Registry has been working on.  Two highlights of the conference had to be the two keynote speakers, Jonathan Zittrain, considered the foremost authority on the future of the Internet and Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr, the popular photosharing website.

Some of the Highlights of the Meeting Include:

• .CA is experiencing very healthy annual growth at a rate of 14%, together with a renewal rate of 79%
• There are now more than 1.6 million .CA domains registered
• CIRA is the fastest growing ccTLD registry in the world
• .CA and .COM comparative Canadian market share analysis - .CA has grown its market share to 29% while .COM has decreased down to 56%
• Last year, CIRA successfully completed a major milestone with the launch of an entirely new EPP registry system.  The industry standard EPP-based system, ensures reliability, as well as, greater security and added robustness.
• CIRA is evaluating the implementation of French character Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) - a special website for feedback from key stakeholders has already been setup.
• CIRA's current Canadian Presence Requirements (CPR) to register a .CA domain will be reviewed at the next CIRA board meeting in December 2011.

The Value of Being a CIRA Member:

Membership in CIRA is free and is open to anyone who holds a .CA domain.  Currently there are over 15,000 members. And the most important privilege of CIRA membership is that it gives you the opportunity to influence the CIRA registry.  It is through membership that anyone can get involved in CIRA's governance and direction by either lobbying to its Board or even vying for a position at a Board of Directors Elections (which is happening this week!).

Members also have opportunities to influence the direction and rules of the registry through member surveys, as well as, direct member consultation (like the IDN discussion).  The fascinating part of being an active CIRA member is that your efforts not only go into influencing CIRA, but also the worldwide Internet via CIRA's involvement with other international Internet organizations. Moreover, active CIRA members have access to the Registry's quarterly e-newsletter and are also invited to CIRA sponsored networking and business development opportunities.

CIRA membership is very unique in the domain industry as very few registries actually follow this methodology.  However, the Registry feels that it is only through membership that the Registry can operate in the best interests of its users.  CIRA best sums up membership as such, "If your domain is your storefront on the Internet's digital village, CIRA is CA's Town Council. Being a .CA member gives you a voice in influencing and electing the Council. No other organization represents Canadians on the Internet like CIRA. .CA membership gives you access to that community."

HEXONET would like to thank the entire team at CIRA for their continued dedication to fostering the development of .CA and building up this key Canadian public resource.  Thank you for your leadership role in shaping Canada's Internet.

If you are a .CA domain holder, we encourage you to evaluate the benefits of becoming an ACTIVE CIRA member today.