.CA IDNs are now fully supported by HEXONET and available to all resellers. There is no change to the API, as .CA IDN domains can be registered and managed using punycode (xn--) for the respective domain name.
French characters for .CA:
- Every French character variant of a registered .CA domain name automatically becomes part of an administrative bundle. For example, the bundle for cira.ca would include variants such as cirà.ca, çira.ca, cîra.ca, çïrâ.ca, and all other combinations of accented French and standard ASCII characters.
- Once a domain name is registered, all the variants of that domain name in the administrative bundle are reserved, and cannot be registered by anyone except the existing Registrant for the domain name.
- Each variant in an administrative bundle you wish to use must be registered individually, and each registered domain name in the administrative bundle has its own lifecycle.
- All domain names within an administrative bundle must be registered to the same Registrant and with the same Registrar.
System Responses for IDN .CA Domains:
- Variants of the checked domain registered by another registrar will return "NOT AVAILABLE"
- Variants registered at HEXONET already will return "AVAILABLE"
- If the variant of the domain name is not the same Registrant the following error response will be displayed
- "504 Parameter value policy error; The request cannot be completed. The domain Registrant ID and bundle Registrant ID must match."
- If the variant of the domain name is not the same Registrant the following error response will be displayed
Additional .CA Information:
CIRA, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, has just published its 2013 .CA Factbook, a compendium of facts and research about the global domain industry and where .CA ranks among its peers. This online report is a 'social document' with tweetable factoids and excellent reports and graphs. Please click here to view the report in its entirety. Below are some of the key highlights of the report:
- CIRA reached a huge milestone in November 2012 when it exceeded 2 million .CA registrations!
- .CA is the fourth fastest growing ccTLD in the world
- More and more Canadians are choosing .CA, which has increased its market share 21% to 30% over the past 5 years (vs. .COM)
- Per viewer, Canada leads the world in viewing online video (45 hours per month, almost double the global average!)
- Canada's Internet economy accounted for 3% of Canada's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012, totalling $49 billion