The ZA Central Registry (ZACR) non-profit company celebrates 32 years of service to the local Internet (28 July).
For over three decades, Africa’s best performing registry operator has managed the technical and administrative wellbeing of the entire South African .ZA presence on the worldwide web.
“ZACR celebrates its birthday this year in challenging times where the Internet is playing an invaluable role in helping more of us to stay safe by reducing our exposure to the bricks and mortar world. We are working hard to ensure the domains we manage are always easily accessible in these difficult times,” says Lucky Masilela, ZACR CEO.
Pinky Kekana, Deputy Minister of Communications, wished ZACR well on the occasion of its 32nd birthday. “Today marks a very important day in the history of South Africa’s Internet. The ZACR started its service to South Africa on this day 32 years ago and more than three decades later, not only manages over 1,25-million CO.ZA domains but it is also the custodian of the WEB.ZA, NET.ZA, ORG.ZA, as well as the .joburg, .capetown, .durban and .africa domains.
“ZACR is a national asset and a South African centre of excellence of which we can all be proud. I wish ZACR many more happy birthdays for the next many decades to come,” she said.
Key to the success of the ZACR as South Africa’s Central Registry are the Registrar and Reseller (RaR) partners who retail domains to domain name registrants, whether corporate, government or individual.
ZACR is proud to be able to diligently fulfil the trust bestowed upon it by the domain name sector and wider ICT industry. Going forward, ZACR urges South Africa’s young people to be increasingly proactive when it comes to owning their future. The youth must prioritise securing their individual online digital identities and this goes well beyond social media. Young South Africans must register and secure their domain names as a way of owning their digital presence and identity.
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 32 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.