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Free and easy domain names for Malaysia

By Cat Yong

The importance of easy and free domain name registration, cannot be stressed enough. For countries like the Toukelau Islands, the founder of the Dot TK country-based domain name registry, Joost Zuurbier claims that 20-percent of the country’s GDP is owed to the Internet and the 28 million Dot TK domain name registrations that it powers.

These 28 million domains have been registered by all of only 1300 people, on the Toukelau Islands. They use only 120 computers among themselves, to access the world via the Internet.

Malaysia – 5 users to every domain name

Zuurbier finds that Malaysia and her 20 million Internet users, have potential to generate one domain name registration for every 5 users.

And Dot ML is the country domain to help Malaysia achieve this, according to the CEO, who described that the free Dot ML domain can be registered in seconds, without any paperwork, and with free usage and renewal.

This is possible, because the country based Dot ML domain which was originally allocated to the country of Mali, is being made available to Malaysia as well.

Representative of the Ministry of Technology and Communications in Mali, Hawa Diakite said, “The governmental organisation responsible for architecture and communication in Mali (AGETIC) and the Republic of Mali, are delighted to bring the Dot ML domain to Malaysia. Mali has experienced first-hand, the positive impact of widely-available free domains. We expect the same for Malaysia.”

Dot ML is a privately funded joint venture between Dutch corporation, Freenom, and AGETIC. With multi-redundant backbones in all countries, Dot ML can handle millions of registrations.

Freenom itself, is a group of companies that aim to provide domain names for free. Zuurbier hopes to have partnered with more countries by year end, with the goal of increasing supply and demand of free domain names.

Benefits
Dot ML domains can be easily registered at www.dot.ml, and with most Malaysian Internet Service Providers or web hosting providers.

Besides the zero cost of ownership and quick registration, there is now also a lower entry barrier to local content creation and Internet entrepreneurship, two big benefits which the Toukelau Islands are enjoying now.

Currently, Dot ML obtains revenue from special, less than 3-letter domain names that require purchase, additional services and when visitors of abandoned websites are redirected to targeted advertising.

“The vast majority of domains, do not generate revenue, but the small fraction that do, generate enough,” Dot ML Chief Operating Officer, Jeremie Godreche described.

There is an estimated 100 new domains being registered, at every hour.

The mechanics of Dot ML
Currently a new AnyCast node is located in Dot ML’s local partner’s premises, in the heart of KL. The Freenom proprietary technology called AnyCast, has existing presences around the globe, and Godreche described it as a scalable infrastructure that is cost efficient, as well as resilient.

“This new KL-based node would add more speed to .ML domain websites and if need be, Freenom would add more servers to scale up according to users’ demands,”

Hoping to be profitable by the end of the year, Godreche admitted however that this isn’t stopping Freenom from investing in infrastructure needed to grow bigger, and that he believed… ,“the revenues will come later.”

“We are interested to invest a lot more in the country,” he emphasised.




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