Scoop Africa Domain Name to go live soon

After years of legal battles, the domain name .Africa will be available to the general public to apply for domain names from July, 2017. Worldwide web administrator, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), awarded the .Africa domain to South Africa’s ZA Central Registry in 2014 after a bidding process. Th e move to implement the domain name was blocked when the only other bidder for the name, DotConnectedAfrica (DCA), challenged ICANN’s decision in a US Court according to Th e Register. Th is resulted in delays which fi nally came to an end in December after the DCA lost a second motion in a Californian court for a preliminary injunction to stop ICANN’s delegation of the domain name to ZACR, this ended the legal process. Th is development will see the registration of new domain names such as “itnewsafrica.africa” available in the not so distant future. According to reports, there will be three phases in the launch of the domain: sunrise, landrush and general. Th e ‘sunrise’ phase will see intellectual property rights holders applying for their respective names. ‘Landrush’ applications follow and are usually for premium or sought-after domain names.