(Source: http://priwap.ru/blog)

The registration of the first domain names in a new Internet zone .rus (.рус) will start in early 2014. This was reported by the press service of the Coordination Centre of the Internet National Domain (CC). As the representatives of the CC specified, the international corporation ICANN responsible for the allocation of domain names on the Internet has signed contracts with the administrators of the ten new Internet zones including the second Russian domain .rus (.рус).

Its administrator, the company “Russian names”, believes that the launch of the new domain “will expand the Russian-speaking Internet address space in the interests of the Russian-speaking world Internet community”. “This new domain is supported by the representatives of Russian-speaking communities abroad, besides, it will help millions of Russians and Russian-speaking people around the world to create their own virtual space in their native language, to overcome the lack of communication, to find like-minded people” - the director of CC Andrey Kolesnikov said. According to him, Cyrillic domains are often used for advertising purposes: the companies make web-sites with addresses in Russian in order to attract customers.

According to CC, there were 833.8 thousand registered domain names in the .rf (.рф) zone as of December, 15, the average gain per day is 558. The share of the domains older than three years makes up 37.29 % of the total number of web-sites. By comparison, there are 4.9 million registered domain names in the .ru zone, the average gain per day is 2.9 thousand. The booking of domains in the .rf (.рф) zone began in November, 2009, after the formal approval of the domain at the 33rd ICANN conference in Cairo. The first stage gave the prerogative to the governmental authorities and the companies - owners of the registered trademarks with names in Cyrillic letters.

The second stage of the booking began on May, 12: the right to secure the Internet addresses in Russian was granted to the owners of brands with names in Latin letters, nonprofit organizations and the mass media. This stage was completed on September, 16. There were just over 18 thousand Cyrillic domains registered at that moment.