Time for CIRA to Get Rid of Canadian Presence Requirements? (3 Viewing)

Is it time for CIRA to get rid of Canadian presence requirements. Would this step make .ca increase in value. I know a lot of people in California would love to register a .ca domain name.

Get involved, run for the board, initiate change

That's the only way it will change

Am I for it?

For me as a domainer - absolutely

Would it be good for .ca businesses - probably not

So you have to look at the core value of .ca and quite honestly it's not directed at us, it is to assure you're doing business with a Canadian entity and watering that down would water down the extension. It would make domainers and CIRA a pile of money but ultimately what good would it be visiting a .ca website doing commerce in USD instead of CAD?

For domainers it would represent a short-term gain with new buyers jumping in initially, then it would be a lot of long-term pain as the bloom would be off the rose pretty quick and .CA would become meaningless to Canadian business. It would soon get lost with all the other generic ccTLDs from the various banana republics who are looking for some quick money and don't care about the future.

Remember, Canada is an actual country with a business sector that needs their own ccTLD, not some island with a few thousand people on it (like .IO) or less than 1000 (.cc) who really don't give a crap about the future of their ccTLD. One some of these tiny island ccTLDs, a vote would be a show of hands.

Transforming .CA into a generic ccTLD would be a huge long-term mistake for our country and with the history .CA already has and the CIRA continues to develop, I really don't see it happening.

DomainRecap said:

For domainers it would represent a short-term gain with new buyers jumping in initially, then it would be a lot of long-term pain as the bloom would be off the rose pretty quick and .CA would become meaningless to Canadian business. It would soon get lost with all the other generic ccTLDs from the various banana republics who are looking for some quick money and don't care about the future.

Remember, Canada is an actual country with a business sector that needs their own ccTLD, not some island with a few thousand people on it (like .IO) or less than 1000 (.cc) who really don't give a crap about the future of their ccTLD. One some of these tiny island ccTLDs, a vote would be a show of hands.

Transforming .CA into a generic ccTLD would be a huge long-term mistake for our country and with the history .CA already has and the CIRA continues to develop, I really don't see it happening.

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There is this myth that only a Canadian citizen or permanent resident can buy a .ca domain. A lot of people probably don't know that foreign owned Canadian corporations can buy a .ca domain. If you have a registered trademark in Canada, you can buy a .ca domain name.

Meaningless to Canadian Business - What other options would the Canadian businesses have, buy a more expensive and .com or setup shop on one of the 100s of new tlds including .agency, .company, .io, and others. Many Canadian businesses are already doing it. Many just don't care that much about .ca.

Banana Republics - UK would be a good example to look at. Nominet has been a pretty successful registry.

Canada is a an actual country - No country needs their own ccTLD. I think the world would've just been fine with .com as the home of the public internet. However there is case to be made for government use of ccTLD.

.IO .CC - Not sure what the comparison is. Again Nominet and .co.uk would be a good example to use for the question I've raised for discussion.

As of the end of 2022, the numbers I could look at without spending too much time on it, Nominet had second and third level combined registrations of 11,093.527.

Change - Funny thing about change is no one really sees it coming. Yet our lives have been totally changed and transformed in the last 25 years.

MapleDots said:

Get involved, run for the board, initiate change

That's the only way it will change

Am I for it?

For me as a domainer - absolutely

Would it be good for .ca businesses - probably not

So you have to look at the core value of .ca and quite honestly it's not directed at us, it is to assure you're doing business with a Canadian entity and watering that down would water down the extension. It would make domainers and CIRA a pile of money but ultimately what good would it be visiting a .ca website doing commerce in USD instead of CAD?

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You can probably use the same argument and ban foreign buyers from buying real estate in Canada, and then try to justify it to all the newly minted Canadian millionaires who are not too far removed from a generations who had to hand over the keys to their houses and simply walkway with nothing.

Protectionism never really works well with capitalism.

Canadian Entity Myth - You can have a registered trademark in Canada and you can own .ca. You don't have to have an established Canadian entity.

Making Domainers Money - I don't think it is about who is going to make money or who is going to make money, it is about creating a more robust market place, and letting the market decide the winners and losers.

Opening the .ca to the world does not water it down, but it creates and opportunity for Canadian businesses. There are many Canadian businesses right now who are not using a .ca domain name. So this one sided restriction where a Canadian business can set up shop on a .co.uk, but a UK national or a UK company cannot do that on a .ca domain, is not good for the market. You can also look at .co as an example.

USD/CAD? I don't think it makes a difference. I think companies of all sizes now have the ability to charge in the currency of their client/customer.

I am a great fan and a true believer or .ca cctld, but the internet has evolved, and what seemed like a good idea in 2000 is probably not so good 25 years later.

CDN said:

There is this myth that only a Canadian citizen or permanent resident can buy a .ca domain. A lot of people probably don't know that foreign owned Canadian corporations can buy a .ca domain. If you have a registered trademark in Canada, you can buy a .ca domain name.

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But only the EXACT MATCH to your primary trademark, effectively limiting a foreign entity to one .CA domain, or at best a couple.

I went through this with a CDRP I received from a foreign company and it's not like they can start registering .CA domain will-nilly, and nor can they mass register all domains with their TM in them. There are definite limits imposed by the CIRA and these applications require stacks of paperwork just to get one domain registered - in my case, we resolved the complaint but it still took 3-4 months for the CIRA to finally accept the TM paperwork and contact info for that one domain transfer.

As for the rest, let's just agree to disagree as you seem to be extremely aggressive in promoting a "Dot-CA for the world" agenda, so further debate would be unproductive.

DomainRecap said:

But only the EXACT MATCH to your primary trademark, effectively limiting a foreign entity to one .CA domain, or at best a couple.

I went through this with a CDRP I received from a foreign company and it's not like they can start registering .CA domain will-nilly, and nor can they mass register all domains with their TM in them. There are definite limits imposed by the CIRA and these applications require stacks of paperwork just to get one domain registered - in my case, we resolved the complaint but it still took 3-4 months for the CIRA to finally accept the TM paperwork and contact info for that one domain transfer.

As for the rest, let's just agree to disagree as you seem to be extremely aggressive in promoting a "Dot-CA for the world" agenda, so further debate would be unproductive.

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"As for the rest, let's just agree to disagree as you seem to be extremely aggressive in promoting a "Dot-CA for the world" agenda, so further debate would be unproductive." "Extremely Aggressive." Really?

You conveniently just decided to pick the trademark mention from my reply - totally ignoring that a Canadian corporation can register .CA domain names. And the fact that a foreign national can own a Canadian corporation. In fact, the Investment Canada Act was created specifically for non-Canadians to establish a new Canadian business or buy an existing one. I can register a Canadian Corporation or buy one off the shelf from someone, and register 5000 domains tomorrow, "willy-nilly."

The point was that it's not like .CA is some exclusive club available to just Canadians. Not sure what good are the restrictions anyways.

I see a lot of people from India with registered .ca's, in fact the last 3 I bought the domainers that owned them were all from India. They totally ignored the Canadian restrictions. I wanted the domains so reporting them would have been unproductive and even so I tend to mind my own business so that was never an option.

MapleDots said:

I see a lot of people from India with registered .ca's, in fact the last 3 I bought the domainers that owned them were all from India. They totally ignored the Canadian restrictions. I wanted the domains so reporting them would have been unproductive and even so I tend to mind my own business so that was never an option.

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I think if someone doesn't play by the rules, there are remedies in place to deal with those individuals. But it raises another interesting point about CIRA not enforcing their rules, given that those individuals from India had no Canadian ties. Often times, in the whois, you see names of individuals with addresses outside Canada.

No. Use the restriction to your advantage. I acquired a beautiful 3L for next to nothing using RIV as leverage.