.Africa Update March 30th, 2017

The battle over the .Africa top level domain has been settled in California Superior court.  The new operator with be ZA Central Registry.  The Launch Schedule is as follows:

  • The Sunrise Period for .Africa will begin April 4th, 2017 through June.  The sunrise period allows trademark holders that have registered in the TMCH to register their names.
  • Landrush Period begins June 5th and ends June 30th.
  • GA-.Africa will be using the model of higher early prices descending in this period over 4 phases.  General availability registration will begin July 4th 2017.

This is a significant story in the new gTLD world since it represents the entire continent as a generic name.  It is part of ICANN’s global name expansion ensuring the next 3 billion users have access to the Internet in all locations and languages.