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“Ditch .com!” government to tell Indians

Kevin Murphy, July 27, 2016, 09:49:37 (UTC), Domain Registries

The Indian government is to urge citizens to register .in domain names instead of .com, according to local reports.
The Economic Times reports today that the Ministry of Economy and IT is to launch a “massive advertising campaign aimed at companies, individuals and startups” promoting .in.
Rajiv Bansal, MEIT joint secretary, is reported as saying the campaign will play up to nationalist sentiments
The government wants to grow .in from about 2.1 million domains to 3 million domains by March next year, it said.
Prices could come down to the $2 to $3 range, the paper said.
The campaign is due to start in a month or so, it was reported.

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Comments (9)

  1. Andrew says:
    July 27, 2016 at 1:45 pm

    For a second I thought your title was about my domain name ditch.com 🙂
    The problem with .in is that its version of UDRP makes UDRP look like a perfect system. .In decisions are a joke.

    Reply
  2. Adam says:
    July 27, 2016 at 4:24 pm

    I’m sure we will see an explosion of more registrations if the price goes down that much.

    Reply
    • Rubens Kuhl says:
      July 27, 2016 at 8:26 pm

      Will we ? Price is not the only issue affecting domain registrations in a country like India, local language support is also a challenge in a country that have many of those.

      Reply
      • Abhijit Relekar says:
        July 28, 2016 at 6:37 am

        Actually, local language support isn’t nearly as crucial an issue in India as it is in say, China. That said, the Registry has been fairly sporting when it comes to promotions, with most Registrars offering deep discounts anyway. Awareness is a far bigger problem in a nation with over 60 million enterprises.

        Reply
  3. Joseph Peterson says:
    July 27, 2016 at 9:45 pm

    .IN is a very promising ccTLD, despite flaws in the INDRP. Ultimately the registry will see which side its bread is buttered on, and the market itself will lead to policy revision.
    Many Indian .IN investor colleagues of mine are very enthusiastic about this forthcoming ad campaign by NIXI.
    Ditch.com … Hard to take seriously a .COM domain that advocates abandoning .COM. Good brand name for other purposes, though.

    Reply
  4. John McCormac says:
    July 28, 2016 at 2:57 pm

    It is a lot harder for a registry to change the habits of a market when the market itself is still in the early, outward looking phase. Most websites and development in that phase tend to be pitching to a global/export market and the .COM TLD is the most accepted TLD for that purpose. What the .IN registry has to do is to build usage in the .IN ccTLD so that it becomes the First Choice TLD for local businesses and users. Otherwise it will trigger a boom and bust cycle like those seen in .INFO, .XYZ etc. The renewal rates on heavily discounted registrations varies but on free registrations and substantially discounted ones, it is close to 5%.

    Reply
  5. Joseph Peterson says:
    July 28, 2016 at 3:46 pm

    @John McCormac,
    In cases where the advertising is aimed primarly at domainers and pricing is dropped to 50 cents or even 1 penny, then – yes, absolutely – the registry encourages massive speculation by bulk buyers who are very unlikely to put domains to use. So, as you say, the name space locks itself into a boom and bust cycle.
    But if the advertising is aimed at real business owners and consumers rather than domainers … and if registrations are only discounted by (say) 50% and not poured out onto the street for a million pennies … then the outcome may be quite different, leading to more real usage. In that scenario, the renewal rates could be much more stable and the doom of a boom/bust cycle averted.
    Cheap domains are often felt to be inconsequential by owners who register them without any real deliberation. But “cheap” is relative. If a domainer in Berlin pays $3 for a .IN domain, he may feel little attachment to it. But to an Indian business owner registering his first .IN domain, that $3 (while hardly a fortune) counts for a bit more.

    Reply

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