On Monday July 1, Barrack Otieno introduced a discussion topic on Kictanet titled “dot Africa Reserve Name Policy Discussions (Introduction)” which tended to give the impression that the “.Africa” (DotAfrica) gTLD had already been delegated by ICANN to South Africa’s UniForum.
Soon after Barrack’s post, listers started seeking enquiries, with Michael Bullut asking for clarification. Further questions and comments followed until the other contender for the continental domain DotConnectAfrica Trust (DCA) got into the discussion to clarify its position as relates to the “.africa” issue as below DotConnectAfrica has been made aware the proposed discussion in the above subject on the kictanet mailing lists.
We understand that there should be ongoing discussions that pertain to the anticipated .africa top level domain name. However DotConnectAfrica feels obliged to inform the general Listers who may have questions like Mr. Michael Bullut below, that while the discussions are being conducted no organization has been given the mandate to run the registry, since both applicants for .africa new gTLD applications are undergoing initial evaluations, and not even the evaluation results are published.
It?s our understanding that Uniforum has in many occasions attempted to mainstream itself as the only front runner for the .africa gTLD. Some of the information that has been posted in the past includes reports such as ICANN AGREES?THERE IS ONLY ONE APPLICANT FOR .AFRICA? and New local domains see breakthrough provided here.
This information had only served to mislead the public who access this information. Towards this end, DotConnectAfrica has been forced to clarify its positions continuously. Some of the clarifications published by DotConnectAfrica regarding .africa in the past are also available on the read more