.FR Registrations Heading Up as France Opens Its ccTLD to Most Europeans - Still No Go For Americans Though

I've always been a fan of ccTLDs that represent the world's major economies, including France's .fr extension. I've reported a lot of good .fr sales through the years but was disappointed to learn early on that the country's very strict Nexus requirements precluded me from registering .fr domains. I still can't but thanks to a major policy change that went into effect December 6, 2011, a lot more people can. 

In fact AFNIC the administrator of the .fr extension has opened the country code to all companies and residents of European Union nations as as well as Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. AFNIC put the same eligibility rules in place for five ccTLDs representing related territories that AFNIC has responsibility for, including Wallis and Futuna (.wf), French Southern and Antarctic Territories (.tf),  Reunion Island (.re), Saint-Pierre and Miquelon (.pm) and Mayotte (.yt). 

Midway through the first day of wider availability for these extensions (Dec. 6), AFNIC posted some early results. By 1:30pm local time that day 3,500 domains had been registered through 70 different registrars. 50% of those registrations were .fr domains and 18% were .re. Another 11% went to .pm with .yt getting 6% of the new regs and .tf 5%. 

AFNIC said that 62% of those early registrations were made by buyers from France (including 9% from Reunion Island). The next highest shares went to individuals or companies based in Germany with 13%, the United Kingdom with 6%, Belgium with 3% and Italy with 2%. 

Now, if we could just get AFNIC to let Americans join the party too! Especially since the number of good terms in the growing extension is rapidly dissipating. According to HosterStats.com over 2.1 million .fr registrations were active as of Dec. 1, 2011. So how about it AFNIC? We may not be in the EU but we do a lot of business with France too and I've got the wine to prove it! :-)

(Posted Dec. 15, 2011)