Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has begun the second phase of its marketing campaign to enhance the registration of the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) of the UAE.

The main objective of the campaign is to target new businesses that have yet to register a domain name and also existing organizations and businesses that have a web presence but have not registered for (a .ae) domain name.

The number of new registrations increased by 30 per cent during (August 2008 to August 2009) period, said a top TRA official.

Since no monopoly exists, there are more registrars providing .ae domain name registration and customers have the choice to select their registrar as competition leads to better service. The registration process brought online has also made it easier, remarked Mohamed Naser Al Ghanim, TRA director general.

'The new campaign highlights the importance of registering and using .ae domain names by all public and private entities operating in UAE or having a relationship with UAE,' he said.

'If an internet address has .ae at the end of it, its registered in the UAE and a part of the .ae domain space regulated by the .aeDA. We encourage all companies and entities in UAE to move to .ae as it truly represents their UAE identity on the Internet,” he opined.

“Through the introduction of .aeDA, we streamlined and automated the entire registration process and brought on multiple new accredited Registrars for better pricing, services and access. We also made changes to increase .ae openness and accessibility while retaining the strong moral and cultural identity of the UAE,' Al Ghanim pointed out.

'Our new campaign is aimed at promoting the .ae domain so that it becomes the domain of choice for all users willing to showcase a UAE presence on the world wide web,” he added.

The most common usage in the area of domain names is .com, which is an example of a generic Top Level Domain (gTLD).  With the commercialization and popularization of the Internet in the 1990s, the .com domain quickly became the most common top-level domain for websites, email and networking.

The use of ccTLDs like .ae is specific to individual countries around the world. Some examples of ccTLDs are .uk for the United Kingdom, .au for Australia and .kw for Kuwait. The trend towards localizing online contents for better serving national identity, communities, customers and end users has paved the way for many websites to move to ccTLDs.

“There are many rational benefits to have a .ae domain name,” said Mohammed Gheyath, executive director, Technology Development Affairs.

'It allows you to protect your web space, access the name you want for your domain name, and signal to your customers where your business is located. It is worth mentioning that .com is a saturated namespace and has already 80 million registered domain names compared to around 90 thousands registered .ae domain names,' he observed.

'This would make the chance of getting good and catchy names under .ae much higher than .com But one of main emotional reasons is national pride. The UAE has an excellent local, regional, and global representation as an economic powerhouse and an ultra-modern nation,' Gheyath pointed out.

Having a .ae address is a big business tool that lets the company develop a unique national identity that positively communicates that the company is based in the UAE. An example of countries where the use of ccTLD dominates the use of .com is Germany. Almost all German websites uses .de as they consider it a national pride,” he pointed out.-TradeArabia News Service