Following a meeting between the Russian Conciliation Commission of the Coordination Center for TLD and the RU-CENTER registrar it was decided that disputed .RF domains will be unlocked within days. This action will release about 60,000 domains according to the Ministry of Communications and Mass Communications.

The CCTLD had taken the drastic step of freezing the registration of .RF domains at the Russian registrar last Wednesday when it could no longer ignore complaints that rules based on a first come first served basis were being violated.

The meeting between the Commission and the Russian registrar was arranged after the RU-Center had threatened to pursue a court action to challenge the lock down on registrations.

Many questions still remain over the administration of the .RF auction that began on November 11 but RU-Center has now agreed to cooperate with the CCTLD and will provide details on the auction and registration processes that it followed.

On the decision to unlock the domains Andrei Kolesnikov, director of the Coordination Center, said, "We do it for the benefit of end users, who have been at the mercy of the auctions. Most of them are probably ‘bona fide’ purchasers, and they should be able to use the domain for which they applied: He added that technically, it did made no sense to continue with the lock down.

The CCTLD opened a hotline for users affected by the block and is making efforts to resolve the current situation saying that there is still a lot more to be done. In the future the commission will examine documents relating to the registration of the disputed domain names and the actions of the registrar that put them up for auction. It has also announced  that another commission will be set up in the next few days to include representatives from the public, State Duma deputies, representatives of FAS and the Ministry of Communications. Its remit will be to study the course of open registration of domain names in .RF, give assessments on the results of running the domain's zone, and formulate recommendations to the Coordination Center regarding possible violations of regulations during the registration process.

Mr Kolesnikov emphasized the success of the .RF zone with already over 600,000 domain names registered with the domains under dispute amounting to a few thousand. It was a situation that could be settled without legal intervention, “as is customary in the civilized world."

Meanwhile, the case initiated by The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) against six registrars: ZAO 'Regional Network Information Center, ANO Regional Network Information Center, LLC Relkom.delovaya Network, Inc. 'Demos-Internet', JSC Registrar, and CJSC "Elvis-Telecom, is to be held in December. The FAS began proceedings after receiving at least 14 applications from individuals and legal entities with complaints against the accredited registrars.

Sources:

www.cctld.ru

www.minsvyaz.ru