Rush for new Russian domains for ccTLD .рф at InterNetX

On November 11, 2010 the Russian registry opened the registration of Russian IDNs to everyone - over 500.000 .рф domains have been registered within seven days

(REGENSBURG, November 18, 2010) – Half a million .рф domains have been registered within the shortest time since registration went public on November 11, 2010. Previously, registration of these IDNs was restricted to trademark owners and government organizations. The Cyrillic characters .рф stand for the initials of the Russian Federation. These popular Russian IDNs have been available at InterNetX since their introduction - with resounding success. InterNetX responded to the unexpected rush for this TLD from the largest country on earth with a special offer for .рф domains.

The registry for the TLD .RU was expecting far less interest and had only estimated around 100.000 registered domains by the end of 2010. A black list containing 4023 taboo words was published simultaneously to the introduction of .рф, in order to avoid the registration of vulgar Russian words.

"Our TLD portfolio is growing steadily. With .рф domains, we can finally meet the needs of our Russian-speaking customers optimally. We are positively surprised and happy about the boom. InterNetX is offering a special price, to help maintain the continuing success of the Russian IDNs," announced Hakan Ali, Director of Sales and Marketing at InterNetX. High registration numbers for Russian IDNs therefore seem very likely in the near future.