The ZA Central Registry (ZACR) NPC, Africa’s best performing registry operator, is celebrating 31 years – and its flagship domain name, the iconic co.za, has surpassed the 1,2-million domain name registrations mark.
“We are proud to continue to diligently fulfill the trust bestowed upon us by the ICT industry including our invaluable Registrar and Reseller (RaR) partners and the South African Internet community to look after South African domain names such as co.za,” says Lucky Masilela, ZACR CEO.
ZACR administers the co.za second-level domain, as well as the web.za, org.za and net.za domain names. In 2014, the registry added the three ZAdotCities domain names, .capetown (dotCapeTown), .joburg (dotJoburg) and .durban (dotDurban).
Recognising that the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) will be a knowledge-based transformation, therefore, ZACR is urging South Africa’s young people to be increasingly proactive when it comes to owning their future.
“Going forward, the youth must prioritise securing their individual online digital identities and this goes well beyond social media,” says Masilela. “We implore the youth to register and secure their domain names as a way of owning their digital presence.”
ZACR is a previous winner of the Best African Registry category awarded by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The ZACR was furthermore one of the first registry operators in the world to implement a Mark Validation System for protecting Intellectual Property Rights within its domain name system.
ZACR was incorporated 31 years ago as UniForum SA on 28 July 1988. The non-profit was founded initially to promote open systems and networks. In 1995 UniForum SA was tasked with administering the fledgling co.za second-level domain within the greater .za namespace.
The ZACR’s subsidiary, Registry Africa is also the administrator of the dotAfrica (.africa) geographic Top Level Domain (gTLD) which is making a significant positive impact on Africa’s presence in cyberspace. For their part, the ZAdotCities domains of dotCapeTown, dotJoburg and dotDurban have notched up some 12 000 domain name registrations.
“Our birthday is also a time to congratulate the many domain name registrants that continue to invest in South Africa’s presence on the worldwide web,” adds Masilela.