DUBLIN, IRELAND – 11 February 2010 - Afilias, a global provider of Internet infrastructure services and the registry operator for .INFO, today announced that it has acquired mTLD Top Level Domain Ltd., the sponsoring organization and registry operator for the .mobi top-level domain. Under terms of the private deal, Afilias Limited, an Irish Limited company, has acquired all of the issued and outstanding capital stock of mTLD Top Level Domain Ltd. (known publicly as dotMobi), and plans to continue operating dotMobi as a wholly owned subsidiary.

“Afilias has long been a leader in launching new TLDs and now supports over 50 percent of the entire universe of registrations in TLDs launched since 2001,” said Hal Lubsen, CEO of Afilias. “Our acquisition of dotMobi reflects our long term commitment to the success of the TLDs we support and the communities they serve.  We are particularly proud of the global success of the .mobi domain, and look forward to working with the dotMobi team and the mobile community to build on this solid base.”

Afilias and dotMobi have worked closely together since the Mobi JV (predecessor to dotMobi) was started by Nokia, Vodafone and Microsoft to apply to ICANN for the .mobi TLD in 2004.  Upon approval, Afilias provided registry services in support of the successful launch in 2006, and today there are nearly one million .mobi registrations.  Now more established, dotMobi will benefit from the increased focus that a seasoned registry expert like Afilias will provide.  

“The mobile Web continues to evolve and expand, and Afilias’ strategic domain expertise combined with mobile industry support will be a powerful accelerant for .mobi growth,” said Trey Harvin, CEO of dotMobi. “Afilias’ strategies for growing top-level domains have directly resulted in several of the world’s largest domains, and we are excited to work closely with Afilias’ management to achieve dotMobi’s full potential.”

“With its excellent registry and DNS support, Afilias has been a close partner since the beginning,” said Jerry Easom, Chairman of the Board of dotMobi. “This partnership, coupled with the success of dotMobi in furthering acceptance of the mobile web, makes moving the ownership of dotMobi to Afilias a natural progression.  dotMobi founders, who include some of the largest companies in the mobile space, are looking forward to supporting dotMobi and the .mobi domain with involvement in both the MAG (.mobi Advisory Group) and the PAB (dotMobi Policy Advisory Board)."

Afilias provides registry and DNS services for more than 15 million domains, including more than 950,000 .mobi domains registered worldwide. In addition, Afilias supports .INFO, .ORG,  .aero, .ASIA, .AG (Antigua and Barbuda), .BZ (Belize), .GI (Gibraltar), .HN (Honduras), .IN (India), .LC (St. Lucia), .ME (Montenegro), .MN (Mongolia), .SC (the Seychelles), .VC (St. Vincent and the Grenadines).

For more information on the details of this agreement please visit www.afilias.info/mobi .

About mTLD Top-Level Domain Ltd. (dotMobi)
Headquartered in Dublin, dotMobi is a worldwide leader in enabling the development & discovery of quality mobile content through innovative services, helping businesses and individuals reach the world’s billions of mobile phone users. dotMobi spurs mobile industry innovation by giving content providers the tools they need to ensure the Web will work on mobile phones with speed, accuracy and relevant content.

dotMobi, a wholly owned subsidiary of Afilias Limited, was founded by 14 visionary mobile operators, network & device manufacturers, and Internet content providers, including Ericsson, Google, GSM Association, Hutchison 3, Microsoft, Nokia, Orascom Telecom, Samsung Electronics, Syniverse, T-Mobile, Telefónica Móviles, Telecom Italia, Visa and Vodafone.

For information on .mobi domains and all dotMobi services, visit http://mobiDomain.com, and on mobile devices, visit http://mobiDomain.mobi.

About Afilias Limited
Afilias is an Irish Limited company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland and is a global provider of Internet infrastructure services that connect people to their data. Afilias’ reliable, secure, scalable, and globally available technology supports a wide range of applications including Internet domain registry services to over 15 million domain names, Managed DNS, and services in the RFID and supply chain market with its Afilias Discovery Services.
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NOTE TO EDITORS: High resolution digital photography of key executives as well as additional quotes from dotMobi founding investors is available at www.afilias.info/mobi

Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) is where the messaging industry comes together to work against spam, malware, denial-of-service attacks, and other online exploitation. Greg Aaron, Afilias’s Director of Domain Security, will speak about domain industry security practices, including attack vectors that hackers use against registrants, registrars, and registries. 

 

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Afilias team members will be attending the 48th North American Network Operators' Group Conference in Austin, Texas.

Afilias will be exhibiting at this year's DNSSEC Pavilion at the FOSE show.  Stop by booth #2012 to learn about DNSSEC implementation from our experts!

Afilias is a sponsor of ICANN no. 37

Afilias team members will be attending the 5th Annual Parallels Summit which has become the premier conference for industry leaders to discuss how to drive innovation, create differentiated service offerings, and build businesses that profit from the Cloud.

.INFO remains the market leader for new TLDs

DUBLIN, IRELAND - December 21, 2009 - Afilias, a global provider of internet infrastructure services and registry for the .INFO domain, has released the 2009 .INFO Annual Report illustrating .INFO's rise over the past eight years.  .INFO currently ranks seventh among all 270+ Top Level Domains (TLD's) worldwide and first among all new TLDs introduced on the Internet since 2001.  

 "After 8 years of concerted effort, .INFO is the undisputed most successful new TLD launched to date, accounting for over 40 percent of all new TLD registrations," said Roland LaPlante, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Afilias ".INFO's experience provides many lessons applicable to the launch of new domains to come.  As an organization, Afilias has been able to use our experiences with .INFO as a benchmark for successfully gaining approval for, launching and growing more new TLDs than any other registry services provider."

.INFO, which now boasts over 5.3 million domains, continues to deliver on its mission to provide Internet users with a fast and intuitive way to access information online, with over 70 percent of domains resolving to real content and over 1 million unique Web sites. The top regions for registrations continue to be North America (61 percent) and Europe (23 percent).  However, Asian markets are growing and the region now holds 11 percent of .INFO registrations.

.INFO also continues to gain penetration into the registrar marketplace which offers domain names for retail sale.  .INFO is now available with over 330 distributors that support over 90% of sales volume in the worldwide domain name industry. 

In addition to statistics on the health of .INFO, the report also addresses important news and initiatives that .INFO has undertaken over the last year. This includes .INFO's efforts to reach new audiences via Facebook, Twitter, the recent .INFO Awards and the release of an interactive .INFO domain directory at www.info.info/directory .  The report also highlights Afilias' continued efforts and accomplishments at keeping the .INFO domain space and Internet users secure through its Domain Anti-Abuse Policy and supporting initiatives.

".INFO's market leadership has been driven by a combination of its value as an intuitive string with broad appeal, near universal registrar support, effective registry management, reliable technology, and an experienced team with a track record of success in the ICANN community," added LaPlante.

The full 2009 Annual report is available online at http://www.info.info/webfm_send/99.

About .INFO

.INFO was the first generic, unrestricted TLD to be launched since .com. Registrations in .INFO first became available in 2001. Since then, .INFO has grown to become the fourth largest gTLD in the world with over 5 million registrations. .INFO websites have a large international audience that is looking for information on every topic from blogs to businesses. Domains are currently available in ten IDN scripts.  For more information please visit http://www.info.info/ 

About Afilias

Afilias is a global provider of Internet infrastructure services that connect people to their data. Afilias' reliable, secure, scalable, and globally available technology supports a wide range of applications including Internet domain registry services, Managed DNS, and services in the RFID and supply chain market with its Afilias Discovery Services. For more information on Afilias please visit http://www.afilias.info/.

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Thueringen.info Takes Top Honor of Best .INFO Web site of 2009

DUBLIN, IRELAND - 9 November 2009 - Today, Afilias announced the results of its 2009 .INFO Awards program which rewards the best .INFO Web sites around the globe. First place was awarded to thueringen.info, a travel information portal in the Thuringia area of Germany. Second place was awarded to gps-tour.info, a peer to peer file sharing service where people, tourist regions or organizations can share and download outdoor GPS tours. Third place was awarded to turkel.info, a travel and tourism marketing agency in the United States.

".INFO has proven itself as a useful and vibrant top-level domain with millions of great Web sites," said Roland LaPlante, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Afilias. "Our 2009 award winners embrace the global need for sharing information on a domain that is intuitive and makes information easy to find. These unique characteristics are what make .INFO an attractive address and ultimately makes .INFO Web sites successful."

The 2009 .INFO Awards garnered more than 50 entries from 18 countries. .INFO site owners were able to submit their site for consideration from October 7 - 23, 2009.  A short list of the top 10 sites selected by a panel of judges was opened for public vote on November 2. The 2009 panel of judges included: Dominik Grollman - Editor in Chief of Internet World Business (Germany), Peter Prestipino - Editor in Chief of Website Magazine , Gautam Chatur - Senior Director at Qorvis Communications , Michael Stephanblome - Managing Director AdJug UK , Katy Tafoya - Editor ConstantChatter.com , and Philipp Grabensee - Chairman of the Afilias Board of Directors. Public voting closed on November 6. Winners were selected by combining the scores of the panel of judges with votes from the public.

"As a judge, I was impressed with the broad range of information presented in the candidate sites," said Afilias' Board of Directors Chairman and .INFO Awards judge, Philipp Grabensee. "Afilias' .INFO is truly a preferred address for those wishing to get their information out in a memorable manner."

Prizes for the .INFO awards are allocated as: US$7,500 for the winner, US$5,000 for second place, and US$3,000 for third place.  More information on the .INFO Awards program can be found at http://www.info-award.info/  

About .INFO

.INFO was the first generic, unrestricted TLD to be launched since .com and is the largest new TLD launched in over 25 years.  Registrations in .INFO first became available in 2001. Since then, .INFO has grown to become the fourth largest gTLD in the world with over 5 million domain names registered. Domains are currently available in ten Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) scripts. A directory of great .INFO sites is available at http://www.info.info/directory . For more information on .INFO please visit http://www.info.info/ 

About Afilias

Afilias is a global provider of Internet infrastructure services that connect people to their data. Afilias' reliable, secure, scalable, and globally available technology supports a wide range of applications including Internet domain registry services, Managed DNS, and services in the RFID and supply chain market with its Afilias Discovery Services. For more information on Afilias please visit http://www.afilias.info/.

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Public Voting for the 2009 .INFO Awards Opens now through November 6

DUBLIN, IRELAND - 2 November 2009 - Now the public has a voice in whose INFO they like best. Today, Afilias, the registry operator for the .INFO domain, opened its 2009 .INFO Awards to public voting. Anyone around the world can now vote for their favorite of the top 10 .INFO Web sites selected by a panel of judges.

"The .INFO domain is the global home for anyone with information to share. The submissions for this year's awards program reflect .INFO's global appeal and the inherent usefulness of an Internet domain entirely devoted to information," said Roland LaPlante, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Afilias.

The 2009 program garnered more than 50 entries. The most popular categories for site submissions included special interest Web sites (28 percent), private Web sites (23 percent) and business/corporate Web sites (17 percent).

 In addition, interest in the .INFO awards was truly global with submissions being entered from 18 countries. 31 percent of submissions came from Germany, followed by the United States at 19 percent and Russia at 12 percent. Notably, the UK accounted for 6 percent of submissions, while India and France both had 4 percent. 

 The 2009 panel of judges included: Dominik Grollman - Editor in Chief of Internet World Business (Germany), Peter Prestipino - Editor in Chief of Website Magazine , Gautam Chatur - Senior Director at Qorvis Communications , Michael Stephanblome - Managing Director AdJug UK , Katy Tafoya - Editor ConstantChatter.com , and Philipp Grabensee - Chairman of the Afilias Board of Directors.

This panel selected the following Web sites as the top 10 submissions:

• http://www.turkel.info
• http://www.gps-tour.info
• http://www.solicitor.info
• http://de.med.info
• http://www.digitaldruck.info/
• http://your-affiliate.info/
• http://www.thueringen.info
• http://www.zulassungsdienst.info
• http://www.westsussex.info
• http://www.troop153.info/

Members of the public can vote for their favorite of these top 10 sites at www.info-award.info Public voting will remain open until 11:59 p.m. November 6. Public votes will be combined with the judges scores to select the top three Award winners. Prizes for the awards are allocated as: US$7,500 for the winner, US$5,000 for second place, and US$3,000 for third place.  The winners of the .INFO Awards will be announced on November 9.

About .INFO

.INFO was the first generic, unrestricted TLD to be launched since .com and is the largest new TLD launched in over 25 years.  Registrations in .INFO first became available in 2001. Since then, .INFO has grown to become the fourth largest gTLD in the world with over 5 million domain names registered. Domains are currently available in ten Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) scripts. A directory of great .INFO sites is available at http://www.info.info/directory . For more information on .INFO please visit www.info.info 

About Afilias

Afilias is a global provider of Internet infrastructure services that connect people to their data. Afilias' reliable, secure, scalable, and globally available technology supports a wide range of applications including Internet domain registry services, Managed DNS, and services in the RFID and supply chain market with its Afilias Discovery Services. For more information on Afilias please visit www.afilias.info.

Dublin, Ireland - 29 October 2009 - Afilias, a global provider of Internet infrastructure services, today announced that Matt Pounsett, a lead member of the Afilias Content Propagation and Resolution Services team, has been selected as a board member of the DNS Operations, Analysis, and Research Center (OARC). 

The DNS-OARC is an organization that provides a platform for the DNS operations community to share information and data.  It also measures performance and traffic load data to provide short and long-term analysis in order to learn and develop remedies to attacks and other problems affecting the DNS.

“Ensuring the stability of the DNS is essential to continuing the communication, e-commerce, and business channels that have become imperative to today’s societies,” said Mr. Pounsett.  “I am excited to be able to provide my expertise from Afilias to ensure that the DNS remains reliable, secure, and resilient.”

Mr. Pounsett recently joined Afilias in 2009 and helps manage Afilias’ DNS infrastructure which supports nearly 10% of the Internet, including 15 Top Level Domains as well as Afilias’ Managed DNS Services customers.

About Afilias
Afilias is a global provider of Internet infrastructure services that connect people to their data. Afilias' reliable, secure, scalable, and globally available technology supports a wide range of applications including Internet domain registry services, Managed DNS, and services in the RFID and supply chain market with its Afilias Discovery Service.

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