Emergency Back-End Registry Operator

Emergency Back-End Registry Operators, or EBEROs, are organizations under three-to-five-year contracts with ICANN to provide critical registry functions, in the event of a TLD registry operator failure. As of 2016 April, the currently contracted EBERO service providers are China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), CORE Internet Council of Registrars, and Nominet.

EBEROs were first activated in Q4 2013.

Usage & Services

EBEROs are only activated if a registry operator fails to provide or is unable to sustain five critical registry functions, or in the case of a transition from one registry operator to another. However, EBEROs have limited capabilities. They maintain critical registry functions but are not authorized to offer additional services a TLD operator may have offered its customers, such as web hosting or networks analytics.

The critical functions covered by EBEROs are:

• DNS resolution for registered domain names
• Operation of Shared Registration System
• Provision of WHOIS service
• Registry data escrow deposits
• Maintenance of a properly signed zone in accordance with DNSSEC requirements

Selection Process

The initial application process began on 2011 September, when ICANN called for a Request for Information (RFI), and providers from around the world submitted their responses. ICANN received 14 RFI responses and underwent an extensive and detailed process, wherein the respondents had to demonstrate the ways in which their organizations met all necessary requirements. Geographic location also played a role in the selection process.

The three selected organizations met stringent technical requirements and demonstrated years of experience in operating domain name services, registration data directory services and extensible provisioning protocol services.