Canadian Internet Registration Authority

Type:	Non-Profit
Industry:	Registry
Founded:	Canada (1998)
Headquarters:	350 Sparks Street, Suite 306 Ottawa, Ontario, K1R 7S8 Canada
Website:	Cira.ca
Twitter:	@CIRANEWS
Key People
Byron Holland, President & CEO Jacques Latour, Director of Information Technology Michael Stewart, General Counsel & Director of Policy J. Paul Havey, Dir of Finance & Administration David Fowler, Dir of Marketing & Communications Donna Cunningham, Compliance Officer Kelly Campbell, Channel Manager Albert Chang, Corporate Counsel

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is the organization that manages the .ca ccTLD. This non-profit organization was created in 1998 and became the official .ca registry on December 1, 2000.

A 15 member Board of Directors, consisting of both elected and appointed members, oversees CIRA's operations. Board members are elected annually by CIRA Members through an online process. Membership in CIRA is free, and open to anyone who holds a .ca domain.

Evolution of .ca domain

.ca is the ccTLD for Canada. Registrants of .ca domains must meet Canadian Presence Requirements as defined by the registry.

IANA operator Jon Postel allocated the ccTLD originally to John Demco of the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1988. At the time, the internet was used mostly for research. The administration of the .ca domain was carried out by John Demco with the assistance of a .ca committee of volunteers. The names from the .ca domain were assigned without charge to the applicants.

The first .ca domain name was upei.ca, registered in 1988 by the University of Prince Edward Island.

In 1997, at the Canadian Internet Community's annual conference, discussions of reform led to the formation of CIRA.

French IDNs

In January 2013, CIRA began offering registration in French, fully catering to both the nation's official languages. CIRA noted that implementing French-language characters is a more challenging and complex process than it may appear to be. For example, the domain "préside.ca" could have 62 different spelling variations depending on the choice of characters used. Therefore, it was important for CIRA to develop a number of policies to simplify the procedure. Consequently, CIRA created a bundling policy that removes the necessity to register every special-character variant of an existing .CA domain.

History of CIRA

• 1998: At the closing of the the Canadian Internet community's annual conference in 1997, the CDNCC recommends that a private sector, non-profit corporation be set up to take over the administration of the .ca from UBC and John Demco. In late December 1998, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is created for this take-over.
• 1999: In a letter, the Canadian Government recognizes CIRA as the new administrator of the .ca domain.
• 2000: In June, he Umbrella Agreement for the Transfer of the .ca Domain Name Registry is signed between the Canadian government, CIRA, and the University of British Columbia. A Transition Agreement for the Transfer of the .ca Domain Name Registry is also signed between CIRA and the University of British Columbia. Through these agreements, CIRA gains complete responsibility for managing the .ca domain from then on.
• 2000: There are 86,976 .ca registrations in effect.
• 2001: Up until this year, CIRA also oversees third-level Canadian domain names (such as www.example.bc.ca), in addition to the standard ccTLD (ie: www.example.ca).
• 2001: CIRA launches Public Board Elections in March.
• 2001: CIRA officially opens its offices in Ottawa, Ontario on May 2. CIRA Members (CIRA Registrants with at least one active .ca domain name) vote in the first Board of Directors election in June. The first CIRA Annual General Meeting is held in Toronto in December 2001.
• 2001: By the end of the year, the registry manages 270,655 .ca domain names.
• 2003: In June, ICANN holds a public meeting in Montreal.
• 2005: CIRA hosts an event during ICANN's 2005 Annual General Meeting in Vancouver.
• 2008: By April, CIRA announces that it has surpassed one million .ca domain name registrations.
• 2009: In October, CIRA announces the launch of a test-bed initiative for DNSSEC. Officials from CIRA say the process of implementing DNSSEC had begun in early 2009, while the implementation date was set for 2010.
• 2010: CIRA releases a new version of its domain name registration system and stops accepting new registrations for third-level domains, but promises to continue supporting existing third-level domain names.
• 2010: ̈Cira achieves 1.5 million .ca domains registered.
• 2010: Late in the year, CIRA begins a national consultation on the future of the Internet, called the Canadian Internet Forum; it is the first time CIRA engages in dialogue with Canadians about issues of Internet governance and policy.

Structure

In order to fulfill its mission and vision, CIRA Board Committees are divided into four sub-committees, where each committee focuses on a specific strategic area of the organization itself. The four sub-committees are listed below:

• Executive Committee;
• Governance Committee;
• Audit Committee;
• Technical Oversight Committee.

External links

• CIRA
• University of British Columbia