Promoting security and innovation in every domain - Afnic

AFNIC 2010 Business rePort 02AFNICin all its facetsAFniC, a French non-profit association, was created in December 1997 at the initiative of the publicauthorities. the main purpose of AFniC is to manage .fr and .re, two top level domains corresponding toFrance and réunion. AFniC promotes the development of .fr throughout the country by:• flexible registration procedures• automation of processes with the registrars• respect of user rights• an attractive pricing policy• a quality charter based on timeless values• an investment with constantly improved security features• an active research and development policy to enhance its expertise• creation of new customer servicesAdditionally, as a neutral, independent body, AFniC acts as a watch platform. its studies, findings and data areprovided to all web stakeholders for collaborative, consistent development of openness.OrganisationAFNIC 2011Continuous improvement (50%)Sylvie lACepChief Executive OfficerMathieu WeIllStrategy, Assistant CEOloïc DAMIlAvIlleSecurity/Co-developmentAlain CARIStANMarketing& InnovationSales repsLegal andRegistry policiesIsabel tOutAuD• Contracts• Registry policies• legal supportIS and Operationsphilippe ReNAut• Operationalcommunication• Continuousimprovement (50%)AdministrationFinanceMarine ChANtReAu• Accounting• procurement, generalservices• human resources• SecretariatR&DMohsen SOuISSICustomer Serviceemilie tuRBAtCommunication &partnershipsJulien NAIlletMonitoring, OperationConstraintsThe people behind AFNIC55 employeesAverage age: 37Women: one third of the workforce (36.5%)Design anddevelopmentRégis MASSé

03The year in actionsjanuary 2010: AFniC rolls out its own Anycastcloud; this addressing and routing system enablesdata packets to be redirected to the nearest or mostefficient servers.it also enhances the performance and security of Dnsarchitectures.2 March 2010: the Ministry of industry appointsAFniC as the registry of the .fr domain for a period ofseven years.16 March 2010: the new naming charter for .frdomain names enters into force.March 2010: the .fr domain name is opened up toFrench expatriates.july 2010: AFniC decides to publish a monthlydashboard on service quality.2010 also saw positive findings from the satisfactionpoll of Be, started in December 2009, with growth of0.4 point over February 2009.14 September 2010: signature of the extensionroot for .fr and .re through the DnsseC Protocol (Dnssecurity extensions). this protocol will lead to evengreater Dns security.September 2010: launch of a communicationcampaign targeting our .fr users and prescribers.AFNIC now in pariseager to build on its core business - thetechnical management of extensionregisters - AFniC participated in the schemeto create new extensions, started by iCAnnin 2008. this know-how led the city of Paristo choose AFniC and its partner Core tobecome the technical operator of the future.paris extension.

AFNIC 2010 Business rePort 04DNSSECkeys to protectionPublic or private, cryptographic keys haveboosted security between the servers and theDns root. it is an optimal protective measure.Changes since its inception in 1983 have allowed theDns to limit risks of intrusion. However, when DanKaminsky discovered a new method of poisoningnameservers, the need to ensure the integrity of Dnsrecords considerably increased. in practical terms,this meant that the organisations in charge of domainnames progressively entered the signature phase fortheir security extensions.AFniC started DnsseC assessment in 2003 at the idsAresearch group.However, the experiments demonstrated that thetechnology could not be implemented in the shortterm. it was therefore only in september 2009 thatthe signature project for zones managed by AFniC in2010 was created, including:• the signature on 15 April 2010 of the .pm zone(saint-Pierre et Miquelon),• the signature on 3 september 2010 of the .tf zone(French southern and Antarctic territories),• the signature on 9 september 2010 of the .yt zone(Mayotte),• the signature on 14 september 2010 of the .fr and.re zones (France and réunion),• the cryptographic keys were inserted into the rootthe following month.the signature of these zones marked an importantstep in the securement of French Dns zones. Yet thesecurity of the French Dns will only be genuinelyimproved once all the keys are published in the Dnsroot, delegation key fingerprints are published, andvalidating DnsseC resolution services are widelyaccessible. on the other hand, the service will beopen to the .fr delegations sometime during Q2 2011.Use of cryptographyDnsseC offers extensions based on theuse of cryptographic signatures (publickey cryptography) to protect the Dns byproviding the following services:• securement of Dns transactions,• securement of data contained in Dnsmessages by means of authenticating theirorigin as well as guaranteeing theirintegrity during routing,• storage and distribution of the keysrequired for the smooth operation ofthe first two services cited above.

AFNIC 2010 Business rePort 06New DatacenterTechnological performancepromoting data securityFrom a technical standpoint, daily datamanagement implies 24/7 operation of the Dnsin perfectly secure conditions, as well asmaintaining the registration chain fluid for the almost800 registrars. to reach this degree of excellenceas well as ensure that service quality is constantlyreinforced and secured against any threats ofhacking or natural disasters, AFniC decided to setup a cutting-edge Datacenter in 2010. Bolsteringthe robustness of infrastructures is a constantneed. today, the infrastructures are hosted andadministered at AFniC. However, from a technicalstandpoint, the new Datacenters have reached levelsof performance, robustness and physical securitywhich cannot be attained alone. All the facilitiesare currently ready, but data migration will onlytake effect in April 2011. AFniC will ultimatelyalso have another, equally professional recoverycentre in France. the AFniC offices may simply actas a secondary fail recovery centre. Having severalrecovery centres guarantees protection and smoothfunctioning for all clients and users.

07> eXperT OpINIONAFNIC has its own Anycast cloudBY phILIppe reNAUT«is and operations Manager, Chief technical officerThe other major project of system is highly resistant,2010 was the deployment since attacking it wouldof the Anycast technology require having an equalat AFNIC. Work started on number of servers, as equallythe system in 2009, and it geographically distributed,was operational and ready a major hindrance tofor deployment by January hacking. AFNIC deployed2010. Anycast technology this server chain worldwide,leads to overall improvements relying on specialised servicein DNS server quality. Until providers for this initialnow, secondary deployed phase. Then in 2010, itservers often numbered five started to deploy its ownor six, and could be saturated network by mainly targetingby a hacking incident. the national territory andAnycast technology displays major cities, first Paris,a single site when there are then Lyon since it is anseveral servers throughout industrial hub close to thethe world that answer. The Swiss-Italy border. Finally,the next steps, with the samegoal of better serving theFrench community, wereRéunion and Europe…notably Brussels. Frankfurtand London are the nextsteps. This major milestonein 2010 helped us reachedan unparalleled levelof security, boosting theresilience of .fr by increasingthe capacity of the systemor network architecture tokeep functioning througha breakdown, and byreinforcing resolution servicequality for the domain»names.1 million eurosin expenditure and investment(2010 cost of the Datacenter)

AFNIC 2010 Business rePort 08Developing .frthe notion of domain names in increasingly wellunderstood by internet users.over 1,900,000 .fr domains were registered atyear-end December 2010, and we expect to celebratethe 2 millionth .fr domain name in 2011. Yet, manybrands and companies still seem to shy away from itand do not always see why it is required, in economicterms. However, with 18% growth year on year in2010 (10 points more than the world average forextensions), .fr demonstrated that it is crucial forboth individuals and companies within the Frenchterritory. in fact, one out of two names belongs to aprofessional website, while 62% of the web serversassociated with the .fr domain names respondsuccessfully. in other words, 85% of the domains ofthe zone direct to a real site. the opinion polls carriedout by AFniC in 2010 also revealed that .fr stirredfeelings of attachment to the French territory, while76% of the respondents stated that they would usethe extension to spontaneously look for the websiteof a French company. Finally, if they had to choosejust one extension, 62% of respondents claimed theywould opt for the national extension.What’s in a (domain) name?remember that a domain name gets yourname known on the net.technically, each computer connected tothe internet is identified on the network byan iP address, a series of numbers which issimpler to replace by meaningful letters. Forexample, it is easier to type www.afnic.fr thana series of numbers like "192.0.2.1". that iswhat a domain name is for. it is easier to useand memorise.Some 1 900 000 domainnames registered as at year-endDecember 2010DNS Unicast serversAFniCsiDnDNS Anycast serversAFniCnetnodPCHisCGeographical distribution of DNS servers for .fr and .re as at 31 December 2010(Source: AFNIC)

09> eXperT oPINIoN.tounes, a successfulskill transfer«The register market is aniche. To date, there arearound 250 registrarsworldwide. There are proveneconomic and technologicalmodels that meet their needs.If you own a register and youdo not want to take care ofanything, there are turnkeyoperating agreements.AFNIC, on the other hand,takes a co-developmentapproach through its articlesof association. Our typicalclient wants to manage,learn to manage and take assovereign a role as possible inthe entire management ofits system. The CODEV-NICsystem, AFNIC’s technologicalsupport jointly developedwith other members ofthe International Board,is based on the principleof sharing knowledge andknow-how. It is mainlygrounded in the transferand ultimate acquisition ofboth by the register holder.BY MOhSeN SOUISSIresearch & Development ManagerObviously, in this case, theinitial investment is heavy.Knowledge must be acquired,engineers trained, equipmentbought, etc. On the otherhand, our client enhancesits autonomy and genuinefreedom of action. That wasthe case of Tunisia. Thecountry had financing fromthe World Bank. They alsobelonged to the InternationalBoard. They knew about ourexpertise and fully agreedwith co-development. So,from April to July 2010, weprepared a specific solution.Unfortunately, with theirtight budgetary constraintsand deadlines, we had to paredown our vision. The projecttherefore started out with aweek-long field mission, afterwhich we submitted a reportspecifying the respective rolesof AFNIC and the client, sinceit is imperative that the clientbe actively involved in settingup its system..We carried out short cyclesof design, development androll-out. At each step, therewas a deliverable for the field,a technical platform which weremotely operated. We calledon a technical consultantfrom Côte d’Ivoire specialisedin the open source softwarethat was used. This activecooperation is what gives codevelopmentits full meaning.With this first test, AFNICdemonstrated its ability tocarry out a complete transferonto a register managementsystem becoming independent.We also know that, althoughthey are completely satisfiedwith this model, it is notimpossible that .tn willmigrate towards our solutionbut on their infrastructureand under their management.»ATI (tunisian internet Agency)Ati launched an international call for tenders tohelp deploy the registration system for the .tounestLD («tunisia» in Arabic letters). AFniC was chosenfor its offer including the CoDeV-niC softwareas the «driver» of this register. the transfer wascarried out 26 April to 27 July 2010.it included systematic tests of Co-DeV-niC withthe iDn (originally slated but never actually tested);the addition of specific rules to Arabic-languagecharacters (rFC 5564); the installation of thesoftware on Ati machines; and the training oftunisian engineers in the completely independentadministration of their new registration system.

AFNIC 2010 Business rePort 10.fr opens up toFrench expatriateson 16 March 2010, after the Minister ofindustry appointed AFniC as registry,AFniC modified its charter to authorisethe registration of .fr domain names by Frenchexpatriates. this naturally followed the step taken on20 June 2006 to open up the extension to individuals.starting at that date, a territorial requirementapplying to individuals limited .fr domain names toindividuals who could prove they had an addressin France. this excluded French individuals residingabroad who had not kept a French residence. theywere unable to register a domain name with theextension of their own country.this situation ended on 16 March 2010, withoutcausing any surge in the number of applications fornew .fr domain names.it is an interesting phenomenon that raises severalquestions: is it difficult to reach these individualsthrough the traditional channels used by AFniC? is itdue to their longstanding use of generic extensionsor the extensions of the countries where they areliving? that would make sense, since an internetuser living abroad may prefer to target the webcommunity of that particular country by choosing thenational extension of the country, just like foreignersliving in France who choose the .fr tLD.Preparing to open up to europe2010 was also the year weprepared to open up .frto europe. to define thisregistration policy better,AFniC consulted the webcommunity, as is stipulatedin the agreement binding itto the Ministry of industry.the method chosen forthis poll was an online questionnaire.From 12 July to 26 september 2010, AFniC consultedthe public on opening up .fr to european companiesand individuals residing in the european union. thepoll ended on 20 october. one initial observation wasthe low response rate.out of the nine topics covered, the respondentsfound no fundamental objection to opening up .fr toall of europe.on the contrary, the poll identified major points fordiscussion, such as the information to be providedto the holder of the domain name, the residenceof the administrative contact, and the status of thedomain name during the verification. Finally, theholder’s eligibility counted less than the possibilityof reaching the holder and consulting the holder’supdated administrative data. respondents evenexpressed the desire to block the domain name if thecontact details of the holder were erroneous.A preliminary revision to the .fr registration ruleswas drafted at the end of 2010, based on therecommendations of the consultation committeesand working groups and the findings of the publicpoll. As a result, .fr should open up to europe duringthe last quarter of 2011.

11> eXperT oPINIoNreinforcing .fr ina suitable legal framework«On 6 October, the FrenchConstitutional Councilruled that Article L45 of theFrench Post and ElectronicCommunications Codewould be unconstitutionalas of 1 July 2011, handingthe initiative over to thelegislature to change it.On 6 October 2010, theruling on the constitutionalityquestion was passed. Thatopened the way for ourMarch appointment forthe management of the.fr extension, since theConstitutional Council judgedthat the legislative frameworkwas unconstitutional inOctober. AFNIC’s work wasnot in any way calledBY ISABeL TOUTAUDLegal & registration Policy officerinto question. Rather, theConstitution Council affirmedthat, given the extent ofdeployment of the Internet,holding a domain namehas become an underlyingelement of our society whichshould be guaranteed, justas communication, freedomof expression, and the rightto entrepreneurship. Butwhen liberties such as theseare at stake, the legislativeauthorities must define therules, not the regulatoryauthorities. It may be pointedout that article L45 goes backto 2004, and addresses thesubject through only aboutthirty lines. It refers thereaders to the applicationdecree of several pages ofmanagement and attributionrules. Likewise, the by-lawwhich appointed AFNICspecifies other prescriptionswhich are reproduced orsupplemented in the AFNICagreement at the very endof the chain. That was whatthe Constitutional Councildisagreed with. Properlegislative procedure requiresthe entire framework to befound in national law. TheCouncil therefore asked thegovernment to reconsider thelegislative framework beforeJuly 2011. We have obviouslyoffered to participate»in thesediscussions for the sake ofgeneral interest.

AFNIC 2010 Business rePort 12Transparencyand service qualitythe year 2010, was therefore focused onboosting client satisfaction. AFniC undertookcommitments regarding performance andavailability levels, the service and data deliverycycle, and publishing a monthly dashboard of itsperformances. AFniC succeeded in informing clientsof new services ahead of time, by sending themtechnical specifications well in advance.Additionally, test phases are longer, release datesare clearer, and for each service offered, clients canconsult a dedicated blog for real-time information.operational communication informs them in acompletely transparent fashion of any events thathappen at AFniC. By boosting the level of informationand monitoring, even at night (the night shift teamhas six people), AFniC reinforces the fluidity of itsservices and strengthens its ties with the registrars.on this subject, during 2010 AFniC met several timeswith the registrars. By getting acquainted with theirteams and working methods and listening to theirexpectations for the registry, AFniC is able to hone itsown research into transparency and excellence.Starting in july 2010, AFNICpublished a monthly dashboardon service qualityAs part of AFniC’s state appointment as registry for.fr domains, AFniC is committed to communicatingon the accomplishment of service quality goals.these goals are described in Appendix 3 of theagreement signed with the state. they address:• Dns (Domain name system) services,• the registration service,• customer service.

13Dashboard for AFNIC service qualityDecember 2010DNS ServiceGoal:Availability of the .fr resolution service with an answer leadtime ofunder 300 ms 100% 100%Delay between sending the query and receiving the answer, from the user’s point of viewAuthoritative servers for the .fr zone answering 100% of the time at least150 ms n/a 75%Delay between sending the query and receiving the answer, from the user’s point of viewregistration serviceAvailability of domain name creation 98,3% 99,4%Processing of domain name creation operations in under 3 seconds 91,5% 100%During a period of unavailability, from reception of the request from the registrar to notificationthat the domain name creation is visible in the Whois lookup• For other registration processes:identification of legal entities within 30 working days 98% 100%Processing of applications with authorisation within 2 working days 100% 90%All other applications require additional assessment• Leadtime for publication of new registrations:Average daily file updates of the .fr zone 22,9 24• Whois access service:Whois availability (on «port 43») 99,4% 99,4 %Answers to queries received (on «port 43») in under 500 ms 98,3% 100%in period of availabilityAvailability of the service to check domain name availability 98,7% 99,4%Answers of the service to check domain name availability(provided to the registrars) in under 500 ms 99,7% 100%in period of availabilityCustomer Service• phone calls:Calls from registrars treated in under 3 minutes 100% 90%• e-mail:Queries receiving a qualified answer in under 3 days 95% 90%outstanding queries requiring the input from experts of the registry• Data leadtime for technical operations:Announcement of maintenance operations on its technical infrastructure10 days before the operation 100% 100%number of incidents upsetting the quality of services which wascommunicated on www.afnic.fr/operations 4/5 100%... within one hour 80% 100%

AFNIC 2010 Business rePort 14l’AFNIC speakssince its inception, AFniC has seen itself as acentre of expertise on domain names and thefunctioning of the Domain name system. thatis the first legacy from its origins as the niC (networkinformation Center), the second being its expresswill to share this expertise by making it available tothe internet community. in partnership with telecomsud Paris, each year since 2007, AFniC has publishedan industry report on domain names in France. thepurpose of this reference document is to analysemarket trends and critically analyse the .fr databasein order to draw conclusions regarding changes interms of use or the appearance of new issues suchas the deployment of iPv6. in providing this industryreport, our goal is to provide a clear, documentedview of phenomena at work in our market. PatrickMaigron, lecturer and researcher at telecom sud Paris,makes a valuable contribution. in addition to thisannual document, AFniC also launched a collectionof industry reports in 2006. they sum up a givenissue in highly understandable and forward-thinkingterms. For example, the september 2006 report on«slamming» is still vitally up to date, as is the reporton potential Dns attacks. in 2010, we published areport on the second Market for domain names,(i.e. the market for domain names that are alreadyregistered), and another on DnsseC, a protocolintended to improve Dns security against certaintypes of attack.2010 French domain name industry reportthematic report - The secondary marketfor domain names in France (April 2010)thematic report - DNSSeCDomain Name System Security Extensions(october 2010)

AFNIC 2010 Business rePort 16The desire to createstructured, long-term R&Dwithin a european ecosystemin october 2009, a delegation of the iis.se (.seregister) visited AFniC to express its particularinterest in dialogue and joint work on r&D topicsaddressed by the AFniC team, such as measurementplatforms, the internet of objects, and DnsseC. tobroaden the field of opportunities to other registriesthat are members of Centr, AFniC and .se set upa second r&D meeting on 1 and 2 July 2010 instockholm. the agenda was as ambitious as it wasuniting (http://www/iis.se.en. evenemang/seandafnic-workshop).Besides the goal of presenting anddiscussing r&D projects of shared interest, AFniCand .se wanted to seize this opportunity to involveCentr members (particularly those involved inr&D) in a debate on several questions: do Centrmembers have a shared interest in creating a newworking group dedicated to r&D within Centr, likeother existing groups such as Center-ADMin andCenter-teCH? if unanimously agreed, how shouldthe working group be set up? 26 individuals from12 different registers (.at., .cat., .cz, .de, .eu, .fr, .ie, .jp,.nl, .pl, .se, .uk) attended this meeting, at which thefollowing subjects were dealt with: digital identities,web check-up measurements and analyses, andfeedback on the findings of the poll on «AFniC’stechnological background» federated ons (F-ons).(https://www.centr. org/main/5515-CTR.html).At the end of the debate, the opportunity of creatinga new working group dedicated to r&D was notunanimously approved. everyone was interested, butthe issue of human resource management blockedthe consensus. After all, some registries have toofew technical staff, and employees play several roles,from operations to technology watch and r&D. theseindividuals would be unable to attend even moremeetings than they currently do (e.g. Center-teCH,riPe, iet F, oArC). even though no formal decisionwas reached on this point, a group of registries inattendance, (namely .cz, .fr, .se, and .uk) decided topursue and hold a 3rd workshop some time in 2011.they committed to forming a programme committeeby offering volunteers and concentrating on a smallnumber of topics which will then serve as the basisfor a call for papers. the Center secretariat offersto support this «informal» r&D group in terms oflogistics and organisation, while the .cz registryoffered to host the event in spring 2011 in Prague.At end 2010, the programme committee was up andrunning, and preparations had started with the choiceof dates and topics.

172010, the federated oNS platformin test phasein 2010, the federated ons platform (F- ons) setup by AFniC within the framework of the multipartnerWinGs project (go to http://www.wings-project.fr/) was exported to two other partners,namely, laboratory GreyC (Caen) and orange Labs(sophia Antipolis), in order to perform functionaltests throughout the network. After this exportphase, which required considerable coordinationand follow-up, the functional tests which had beenperformed on the internal platform (AFniC) werecarried out and validated with the partners. theperformance test phase also started at year end andwill continue in 2011. (the project is slated to endin october 2011). on this occasion, the softwareprogrammes (ons clients and update utilities forons redirections) were improved and updated.Contributing to the development of Internetof objects in France and abroadthe AFniC also made an active contributionto the Gs1 «ons requirements Ad hocCommittee» to prepare a document entitled«Federated ons (F-ons) requirements document».this document was issued and validated by Gs1 atend 2010. research carried out on the federatedons was also used for the Proxi Produit project (inpartnership with Gs1 France and Adenyo), which wasaccepted by the state secretariat in charge of theoutlook and Development of the Digital economy. inthis project, identifiers are not those of rFiD labels,but of barcodes. the knowledge taken from theWinGs project particularly concern the formatof domain names, the ons client andtechnical aspects relating to the appropriate types ofDns registration content. the WinGs project also ledus to work with our respective swedish counterparts(Gs1 sweden and the .se registry, iis.se). As partof an industrial project, they worked on extendedpackaging using barcodes. in this partnership, wewere able to implant the federated ons by makingan instance of our european WinGs-based rootcooperate with the scandinavian ons root. today, itis the fourth operating ons root. to put this root intooperation, sweden relied heavily on our research andalso gave us some constructive feedback.

AFNIC 2010 Business rePort 182010 Summaryever greater involvementin co-developmentreinforcing partnerships, starting programmes,supporting co-development actionssince 2009, the co-development policy implementedwithin the framework of the international Body ofAFniC has received financing from Fonds du Collège,which helps develop partnerships with other domainstakeholders. it was with this goal in mind that AFniCsigned a partnership agreement with the AFtLD(African top Level Domains organization). Here is alist of actions supported by Fonds du Collège in 2010(¤60,000):• nGL (of the internet society): training in internetgovernance. supported the opening of the first classin english in 2010 and the preparation of theFrench-speaking class for 2011;• euro-ssiG (summer school on internet governancein Meissen, Germany, 25-31 July 2010):3 participants received funding to attend;• nsrC partnership (network startup resourceCenter): French translation of their iroC coursematerials (initial registry operations Course);• Funding for the AFtLD workshop (iroC training)in Bamako (september 2010);• Fellowship Grants allocated to six individuals toattend major international conferences: 3 for iCAnn(3 individuals), 1 for the iGF (internet GovernanceForum, 1 for the AFtLD, and 1 for CAri’2010 (AfricanConference on research in Computer science andApplied Mathematics).The Committee, ecosystem of a TLD:privileged dialogueeach year, the AFniC General Assembly is a highlightof the international Committee’s year, since it isthe chance to bring together all members of theCommittee. After meeting for the first time in anothercountry (Dakar, senegal in 2009), the annual meetingfor 2010 was held in Paris on 9 and 10 June. thetraditional seminar of the «joint day» is the chancefor all Committee members to debate with their usualpartners (icann, isoc, Adetef) on tLD developmentand international cooperation. this year’s focuswas on the issue of delegation and redelegation ofcctLD extensions – still a major source of concern indeveloping countries. An informative, constructivedebate ensued on the analysis and perception ofAFniC on what it calls the ecosystem of a tLD, as wellas the role of the registry manager in this context.

19> eXperT oPINIoNhelping develop communitiesof stakeholders based on thevalue of shared dialogue«Since its inception,AFNIC has contributed todevelopment of not only theFrench web community butalso similar communitiesoperating in the samebusiness lines and addressingwith shared societal issues.The Committee bringstogether stakeholders,initially focused on theFrench-speaking world, asthe result of the initiative ofthe AFNIC founders to driveco-development policy withan eye on their counterpartsin developing countries.The idea arose from theobservation that the latterfaced development problemsin their management ofccTLD registries (countrycode Top Level Domain),and that both partieswould benefit from sharingexperience. This commonground was seen as a goodvector for co-developmenton shared societal issues thatapplied to different contextsbut which could be addressedtogether. Each brings its ownBY ALAIN CArISTANsecurity / Co-development Managerresources to the table. Inthe global South, you oftenfind human resources andskills that can be reinforced,while the North often hasresources and know-howacquired in the deploymentand advanced operation ofinformation technologies.We wanted to facilitate theappropriation of knowledgeand provide practicalassistance with knowledgetransfer through mentoring.In the workshops set up, thechosen candidates are alwaysspecialists in their field, withoperating responsibilities intheir respective companiesor bodies. During the weekof training, discussions,meetings and practical workare carried out betweentrainers and trainees. Thecandidates are invited to puttheir learning to good useon their own project evenwhile the course is still on.Depending on the course,this may even involve adirectly usable project attheir workplace. All our workboils down to placing ourfuture experts in a setting ofdialogue free of competition,since all of them have theirown individual projects.This reinforces both theirindependence and know-howand their ability to work inexpert groups and pass onknowledge. In my view, theadvantage of the Committee isits partnerships, which enablethis cooperative support of thedevelopment of communitiesof Internet developmentstakeholders, based on thevalue of shared dialogue.Finally, dialogue and mutualhelp on the practicalities ofco-development require time,investment and work - not onprojects based on the economicand legal models of the globalNorth, but on collaborativeprojects organised and run bythe participants of the globalSouth who are already expertsin their fields of skills andvalued as such by their homecommunity.»

AFNIC 2010 Business rePort 20Supporting the changeof our positioning byoverhauling our identityin light of the growing popularity of .fr (1,900,000registrations in 2010), and the strategic changesof AFniC, public communication must be backedthis year by a change in our positioning. not only isAFniC a multi-registry association, but it also offersa wide variety of technological services for sale toits clients. it thus defends its dual purpose: stayingtrue to its traditional role as a general interest serviceorganisation, and reinforcing its support sales inorder to fund its own development..fr likes attention«in terms ofcommunication, saysJulien naillet, directorof communication andpartnerships, AFniC hasworked on its visualidentity in order tomirror changes to itspositioning. in 2011, thiswork will lead specifically to the preparation of a newlogo and a revised set of graphics guidelines.the guidelines should also be used externally formarketing actions targeting our natural partners,in order to encourage adoption of .fr and raiseawareness of its strategic importance on the Frenchmarket. today, AFniC is not only the manager of .fr,but of .re as well. As technical operator, it is alsohelping pave the way for the .paris extension jointlywith the City of Paris. Finally, AFniC also sells services.All year, we have discussed, exchanged viewpoints,and made choices of a legal nature (for example, bymodifying of naming guidelines). our communicationgoals should therefore reflect our actions in all theseareas by:• changing the visual identity of AFniC to pave theway for a multi-register model,• laying a new basis for its web presence by raisingpublic awareness and developing a preferencefor .fr,• starting and maintaining comarketing actions withregistrars,• measuring customer satisfaction,• polishing AFniC’s image as a centre of expertise,• developing registration activities.»

21result of communication actions over 2010From 29 november to 31 December, AFniClaunched its communication actionsby producing a mini-site: www.faitesvous-un-nom.fras well as a multi-channelB2B advertising campaign intended for allprescribers likely to recommend or registera domain name on behalf of clients, such asweb agencies, communication agencies andprofessionals, webmasters and intellectualproperty consultants. the purpose of thecommunication campaign was to raiseawareness of how important it is to makea strategic choice of domain name andextension (.com, .net, .fr…) when launchingcommunication on the internet. it backedits statements with the latest .fr image pollconducted in June 2010 by AFniC, in whichthree out of four French respondents statedthey would spontaneously look for a companywebsite under .fr. this campaign was carriedout on the internet using conventionaladvertising tools such as banners and eventbasedmeans such as website skins and homepages. it was visible on various strategic sites,like 01 Net, Clubic, Comment ça marche, LinkedIn,Stratégies, viadeo and Zd net. the campaignalso featured a memo outlining its main pointsavailable for download. the campaign analysisrevealed that:• over 52,000 unique visitors consultedthe mini-site,• the memo was downloaded 1,900 times.ultimately, the pre/post test study of thecampaign showed an increase of 9% in thememorisation rate.

AFNIC 2010 Business rePort 22AFNIC in figuresChanges in the total number of .fr domain namesRenewal rates of .fr domain names2,200,0002,000,0001,800,0001,600,0001,400,0001,200,0001,000,000800,000600,000400,000200,0000+66%2006+18%+23%+32%+40%2007 2008 2009 201092%90%88%86%84%82%80%78%90%84%82%81%79%2006 2007 2008 2009 2010VariationCumulative total of .fr domain namesAverage price of domain names sold on Sedoin 2009, by extensionextensions.uk : 2,216 ¤.com : 1,849 ¤.at : 1,541 ¤.es : 1,149 ¤.net : 1,058 ¤.biz : 1,048 ¤.org : 1,031 ¤.de : 965 ¤.eu : 722 ¤.info : 482 ¤.fr : 2 ,958 ¤0 ¤ 500 ¤ 1000 ¤ 1500 ¤2000 ¤ 2500 ¤ 3000 ¤ 3500 ¤Average price (in euros)Changes to the number of DNS queries in 2010no. of queries received per sec. by these servers6,0005,0004,0003,0002,0001,0000Apr. 08May 08Average April - Dec. 2008:2,700 queries per secondJune 08July 08Aug. 08sept. 08oct. 08nov. 08Dec. 08Average April - Dec. 2009:3,100 queries per secondtrend lineJan. 09Feb. 09March 09Apr. 09May 09June 09July 09Aug. 09sept. 09oct. 09nov. 09Dec. 09Mean at start of 2010:3,800 queries/sec.Jan. 10Feb. 10March 10Apr. 10May 10June 10July 10

23The phenomenon of registry concentrationcontinues: 791 in 2010, down 25% over 5 years0.4%Breakdown of registrarsby number of domainsin their portfolio17.5%2.4%8.2%< 10> 100,000> 10,000 < 100,000> 1,000 < 10,000> 100 < 1,00035.5%36.1%> 10 < 100Ranking of the registries by the size of their .fr portfoliooVH1 & 1GandiAmenonline sAsnordnetnamebayPages JauneseuroDnsFrance télécominDoMLWsMelbourne it LtdeLB MultimédiaWeb intelligenceMailclubCronon AGnameshieldViaducAscio technologies inc.Key systemsLinkeoAB Connect/HosteurtucowsnfrancesFrArysCsC Corporate domainsDomain.frDrim/Groupe Mit78 75065 55049 67748 18545 19643 22334 22430 09924 31318 21918 03814 73413 98613 47212 69911 65810 78410 72810 4639 3808 4157 0827 0706 6406 2336 0745 860217 961289 752546 0190 100 000 200 000 300 000400 000 500 000 600 000no. of names managed

25AFNIC expenditurestructure for 201031%52%salary costsservices/sub-contractingreal estate expensesoperations (miscellaneous)4%13%Resource structure of AFNIC in 2010(thousands of euros)2009 (for comparison)7%1.2% 5%0.5%7% 7%30%Memberships/packagesCreationsMaintenance31%Miscellaneoussubsidies for projects55%57%Changes to the operating result in millions of euros1.5001.0000.8610.7271.0600.5000.000-1.1170.270-0.500-1.000-1.5002006 2007 2008 2009 2010result

AFNIC 2010 Business rePort26AFNIC and the futureA great deal of positive events happened for AFniC in2010, and 2011 should continue in the same vein.A new legislative framework is expected for 1 July2011; it will have an inevitable impact on existingregistry policies. other challenges are also alreadyin the works, such as the opening up of .fr to europe,the introduction of iDn under .fr, and the DnsseCdeployment.these are not new projects. in fact, AFniC has beenworking on them for several months, and in somecases for several years. But their implementationshould be completed towards the end of 2011.in the same time period, AFniC also wants to pursuethe work on service quality, customer satisfactoin,and development of its registration activity started in2010.it will reorganise its services to better meet thesegoals. For example, an operational "customerservice" will be set up to better meet the needsof the registrars and develop active cooperation.Additionally, a Marketing and innovation departmentwill bring together these services which have untilnow been too far removed from each other toprovide a genuine growth strategy for our internetregistration business.The 2011-2015 strategybreaks down into five keyareas:• aiming for operational excellence,• developing the preference for .fr in France,• consolidating our technical operator activity,• reinforcing the resilience of the internet,• raising awareness of AFniC's expertise inthe community.Another major issue for AFniC - security - will alsostill be a top priority. AFniC will pursue investment inthis area, particularly be deploying two new Anycastnodes, completing construction of its Datacenter, andsetting up an annual security audit.in other words, 2011 is full of exciting challenges.in addition to celebrating the 2 millionth .fr domainname, it will also be the 25th anniversary of the .frtLD!

AFNIC 2010 Business rePort 27GlossaryAFNIC: Association Française pour le NommageInternet. AFniC is the management centre (registry)and resource centre (niC France) of country code toplevel domains (cctLD) for France: .fr and .re (réunion).AFTLD: African top Level Domains Organization.ccTLD: country code Top Level Domain.Around 250 cctLD have been determined using theiso 3166 two-letter country codes. examples: .fr forFrance, .jp for Japan, .de for Germany.CeNTr: Council of European National Top-leveldomain Registries. Founded in 1998, Centr gathers acertain number of niC (mainly from europe) desiringto join forces to face issues of their cctLD registrybusinesses.Naming guidelines: set of rules governing anextension (cctLD or gtLD). the Guidelines coverall administrative, legal and technical aspects ofdomain names which may be registered under theseextensions.DNS: Domain Name System (or Service). Distributeddatabase that records web resources (computer,router) in the form of a domain (e.g.: afnic.fr) andmatches them with an iP address.DNSSeC: Domaine Nane System Security Extensions.DnsseC is one of the extensions of the Dns protocol.this extension uses digital signatures to ensure theauthentication and integrity of Dns registrations.gTLD: generic Top Level Domain.generic top Level Domain.examples: .com, .net, .org, .biz, .name...ICANN: Internet Corporation for Assigned Names andNumbers. this organisation was founded in october1998 as an initiative of the American government.its purpose was to take over internet administrationfrom the American government.IDN: Internationalized Domain Name.Domain name featuring characters other thanAsCii characters (e.g. Arabic, Chinese or accentedcharacters).

AFNIC 2010 Business rePort28GlossaryIeTF: The Internet Engineering Task Force.the ietF is an isoC body. Based on volunteering, itfederates research and development groups workingon internet technologies and protocols.ISOC: Internet SOCiety.Association of professionals interested in internetgrowth and expansion worldwide.NIC: Network Information Center.As the name implies, a centre for information on anetwork. AFniC is therefore designated "Fr niC" or"niC France".ONS: Object Naming (or Name) Service. standard thatassociated a single identifier on an rFiD label to asingle file (web accessible) describing the object inquestion.registry: Body (association, company, etc.) in chargeof managing the database of a tLD, or of iP addressesfor a specified region.rFID: Radio-Frequency Identification. Radioidentification standard.Naming: policy for assigning domain names. thisvaries between the various bodies accredited tomanage their webspace (.fr: AFniC, .uk: nominet,.com: verisign...).Writing secretariat: DAF AFniC - Design and layout: semiostyle - illustrations: David GiraudonPrinted on recycled paper