Universal Acceptance Challenges for Growing ZAdotCity Domains

The ZA Central Registry (ZACR) is a Not-for-Profit (NPC) entity that administers and manages a number of .ZA Second Level Domain Names, such as CO.ZA; NET.ZA; WEB.ZA and ORG.ZA. In 2014, the organisation assumed responsibility for administering three ZAdotCity domain names namely .capetown (dotCapetown), .durban (dotDurban) and .joburg (dotJoburg).

There are currently over 11 000 ZAdotCity domains that have been registered by the ZACR and its registrar partners since the first domains were made available for public registration in November 2014. It should be noted that the ZAdotCity names that are published are authentic and official for use by all in email communication, websites and other related platforms.

The usability of the new character names is covered within the principle of Universal Acceptance that enables global connectivity with the introduction of new Top Level Domain names (TLDs), which support different languages and longer characters. Click the following link to access the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Universal Acceptance Guide HYPERLINK “https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/ua-quick-guide-02mar16-en.pdf” https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/ua-quick-guide-02mar16-en.pdf and the definition of Universal Acceptance HYPERLINK “https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/universal-acceptance-2012-02-25-en” https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/universal-acceptance-2012-02-25-en

ZACR has become aware that some users are experiencing challenges when utilising their ZAdotCity email addresses. These challenges materialise because organisations have email systems that are still only able to recognise domain names and associated email addresses that have two or three character labels and deny access to the new Top Level Domains (TLD) that go beyond two and three character labels.

“The relative newness of the ZAdotCity domain names and consequently email addresses associated with them may result in challenges to user communities. For example, email servers and policies within public and private organisations may not recognise or allow access to emails having a ZAdotCity extension such as lucky@registry.joburg,” says Lucky Masilela, ZACR CEO. ZACR is calling on local IT Managers to review and adapt their organisations’ email system policy to accept email communication with a .capetown (‘dotCapeTown’), .joburg (‘dotJoburg’) and .durban (‘dotDurban’) domain name extension.

“The ZACR has grown the co.za domain into a notable 1.1 million plus Second Level Domain (SLD) registrations. With the support of South Africa’s IT community, we can likewise grow dotCapeTown, dotJoburg and dotDurban to impressive levels with all the associated benefits to the country,” said Mr. Masilela. South African individuals and businesses need to stand out from the worldwide web clutter, which is enabled by ZAdotCity names,” he concluded.