Over 36,000 domains registered in .BY zone in 2013

Over 36,000 domains were registered in the domain zone .BY in 2013, BelTA learnt from Director of the company Hoster.by Sergei Povalishev.

According to Sergei Povalishev, this allowed Belarus to become the country with the fastest growing domain base. Belarus is ahead of previous years’ leaders such as Portugal, Iceland, Montenegro and Romania.

The largest number of domains was registered in Minsk Oblast (77% of the total number of registered domains), which is followed by Brest Oblast and Gomel Oblast (each 5.1%). Belarusian nationals own most of these domains, however, some of them belong to Russians, Germans, Americans and people of other nationalities. “Bavaria’s residents often register domains in the .BY zone by mistake because they confuse it with the German domain zone,” Sergei Povalishev noted.

Currently over 94,000 domains are registered in the .BY zone. Some 30,000 domain names here are vacant.

Sergei Povalishev said that apart from its core business, which is domain registration in the .BY zone, the company sells domains via charity auctions. Taking part in auctions are domains excluded from the register for various reasons. Since late 2012 the company has already held thirteen such auctions, with earnings close to Br1.2 billion. This money has been transferred to eleven Belarusian orphanages.