IE Domain Registry t/a .IE Annual Report 2021

Operational review At the end of 2021, there were 326,103 .ie domains on the database. There were 62,198 new registrations in the year, the second-highest annual figure ever recorded, being a 4.5% decrease on 2020 (65,113). These registrations were offset by 42,593 non- renewals/deletions which were up 16.9% over 2020 (36,446 domains). This combined effect means that the net increase of 19,605 in 2021 is 31.6% lower than the net increase in 2020 (28,667 domains). On a positive note, we continue to gain market share against .com with .ie at 52.6% of hosted domains. Registration revenue increased by 9.1% to €4.12 million (2020 – €3.77 million). The deferred income on the balance sheet increased by 6.5% in 2021, to €2.98 million (2020 – €2.80 million). This is because the invoiced value of registration fees increased by 4.8%, reflecting an 86% renewal rate and 62,198 newly created registrations in 2021. This ongoing new growth was once again primarily the result of businesses planning to get online in response to Covid-19 restrictions, with the promise of generous government supports including the Trading Online Voucher scheme, and also the result of marketing activities by our accredited Registrar community. Businesses invested in a trusted .ie web address to continue communicating with their customers and to sell their products and services, often using apps and cloud platforms to boost sales and control costs. The .IE Marketing and Communications team refocused our .IE Tipping Point reports in 2021 to provide useful and relevant insights to policymakers and also to provide helpful business advice to SMEs via webinars and case studies. The financial position of the Company at 31 December 2021 is solid. Members’ Funds increased by 10.7% from €4.56 million at December 2020 to €5.05 million by the end of December 2021. Commentary on the 2021 financial performance is set out in the Report on page 31. There was no progress in 2021 on the Company’s application to ICANN for the transfer from UCD of ‘ccTLD Manager’ status to IE Domain Registry, which was submitted to ICANN in February 2011, accompanied by letters of support from stakeholders in the local internet community. In order to complete the transfer request ICANN will need a letter of support from the Irish government. The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC) is still considering the matter. Contributing to national cyber security efforts Again in 2021, the consequence of Covid-19 was an increase in cyber attacks, phishing and online fraud. PwC labelled 2021 as ‘the year of the zero-day’ as the global online community experienced mass exploitation of vulnerabilities, in highly targeted operations. One such vulnerability, Log4shell in an Apache logging tool “Log4j” allows unauthenticated remote code execution and was widely described as potentially the most severe computer vulnerability in years. The technical services team continues to protect the national DNS infrastructure against ongoing and new external cybersecurity threats, in particular in the face of the continuing global increase in ransomware, malware and DDoS attacks. As a designated Operator of Essential Services the Company continues to make a positive contribution to the safety, security and resilience of the national internet infrastructure. The data escrow function continued to operate, whereby relevant data sets within the .ie database are extracted, encrypted and transmitted to a third party, to be held in safekeeping and only released to the appropriate authorities in the unlikely event of a catastrophic event occurring at the registry. This added layer of resilience, reliability and protection provides business continuity and peace of mind for government, regulators and stakeholders. Promoting nationwide digital adoption In 2021, the Board of Directors approved a €1 million investment in the .IE Digital Town programme over four years. The programme has three elements: – Big Data for small towns; secondly, the .IE Digital Town Awards which was developed to promote awareness, knowledge, use and understanding of the internet in Ireland by its citizens, businesses and communities. It also highlights the benefits and possibilities of the internet and celebrates the digital achievements of local towns. The third element is the .IE Digital Town Blueprint, a digital readiness framework developed to help town leaders and policymakers embed their own digital town action plans in empirical data. .IE partnered with the Irish Institute of Digital Business at DCU to fully explore the concept and value of the “digital town” through a comprehensive research project. The resultant framework is the first of its kind in Europe and forms the basis of the Blueprint. In designing the programme, the Company has leveraged its many years of experience, research and learnings with its earlier initiatives such as Optimise, Internet Day and Digital Town Gorey (2018) and Sligo (2019). Chief Executive's Report IE Domain Registry CLG t/a .IE / Annual Report & Review 2021 7