In a move that will see South Africa’s three largest cities receive personalised Internet domain names, the South African Central Registry (ZACR), in collaboration with the Department of Communications (DoC) and the South African Domain Name Authority (Zadna), on Tuesday officially announced the introduction of new city top-level domains (CTLDs) for Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.

Trademark holders could now apply for the reservation of their chosen domain names from within the dotJoburg (.joburg), dotCapetown (.capetown) and dotDurban (.durban) domain stable.

Zadna CEO Vika Mpisane explained at the launch event, in Midrand, that the initial domain name application phase, which began on Tuesday, would comprise the Sunrise period and the Landrush period, both of which were intended to protect the rights of intellectual property owners and prioritise their claim to a particular domain ahead of the later registration phase.

The 90-day Sunrise period would allow large-scale commercial trademarks registered with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) to register their domain names before they were snapped up by middle-men looking to overcharge these companies for the use of an associated domain name at a later stage.

The 120-day Landrush period would provide the general public with their first opportunity to apply for an Internet domain name, but would not employ a first-come, first-served principle.

This process would instead entail the opening of a 120-day application window, which would run concurrently with the Sunrise period and which would accept registration requests for generic and premium domains.

“People can apply for names, but they won’t necessarily be allocated these names, so there’s no guarantee. If more than one party applies for a particular name, this will be resolved through an external auction process,” Mpisane commented.

He added that the registration of names would follow the “usual process” in which applicants registered names through their chosen accredited registrars.

“As is normal practice, different registrars will charge different prices owing to bundled services they provide in addition to the basic domain name registration service, but this shouldn’t be more than around R400,” he said.

Following the close of the initial registration phase, in October, any global Internet user would be able to register a South African CTLD, on a first-come, first-served basis.

The launch of the CTLDs followed a lengthy application process, which saw the DoC, Zadna and ZACR apply to Icann – the international nonprofit organisation that coordinates and allocates the Internet's global domain name system – for the issuance of domains personalised to South Africa’s most prominent cities.

Each application cost $185 000 and was funded by ZACR.

“After conducting extensive research, we realised that Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban are the three key cities that South Africa ‘sells’ to the world. These domain names provide a golden opportunity for organisations and individuals with a particular affinity for South Africa's three best-known cities to claim a piece of their valuable brands,” Mpisane noted.

He added that the organisation would, in future, explore the possibility of pursuing the addition of other South African metropoles to the local CTLD offering.

While the ZACR operates the .co.za, .web.za and now the SA CTLDs, Zadna is the government-appointed regulator of the greater .ZA namespace.