Registrations in Open ccTLDs. (June – July 2002)
The author analyzes domain registrations and usage in the “open ccTLDs” of .CC, .TV, and .WS in order to quantify the domains’ size, usage, and registration patterns. Analysis first reports the number of open ccTLD web pages indexed by Google, finding open ccTLDs to be less than one one-hundredth as large as .COM when measured in this way. The author next considers registration of commonly-used dictionary nouns; while many such domains have been registered in the tested ccTLDs, more than 80% lead only to placeholders or to no web content at all. Finally, the author investigates open ccTLD registrations that use the same second-level strings as the primary .COM domains of major corporations worldwide (including the Fortune 1000 and Forbes International 500). Again, many such domains have been registered, and more than two thirds of such registrations are by registrants other than the registrant of the corresponding .COM. The web content available on sampled domains provides evidence both of substantial defensive registrations and of substantial cybersquatting.