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I registered a .cd (Democratic Congo Republic) domain in the past and it's now up for renewal in a couple of weeks. It seems, for some reasons (maybe political?) there have been changes and I'm unsure how to get some solid information.

Previously, domain name registration was delegated to a company called Conic at http://conic.cd/. Email was sent from admin@nic.cd. This company has now moved to http://conic.africa. My account still works with them and they assured me they are still responsible for the management of that domain name. I've had a good relationship with them for the last six years or so.

However, on http://nic.cd/ which I have to consider the authoritative site, there is only a very rudimentary message regarding the fact that Conic (and others) are no longer authorized to handle .cd domains. As this site is more often down than up, I've taken a screenshot (see below). So, they have the official domain name, but don't appear serious.

Here's a screenshot of the site nic.cd when it was up

I've contacted the email account mentioned (support@nic.cd) to get some clarification, but nobody has ever replied.

As the domain name I have is a really short one (just two characters) it's also quite expensive. I don't want to potentially lose that money.

This is why I'd like to ask what I could do to get some more authoritative information. Thanks!

jfix
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2 Answers2

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The authoritative data on who manage .CD domain names, at the registry level, is here: https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/cd.html

It seems indeed to be http://www.nic.cd/

It is unfortunate is the registry does not reply to your requests. Try first with the other email addresses available on the page at IANA.

If you still do not get any reply, try one level up, that is directly iana@iana.org

UPDATE

These articles may shed some light on what is happening:

In short, as stated previously I would advise not to rely on .CD domain names for now. The .CD zone has various problems right now (http://dnsviz.net/d/cd/WlON0A/dnssec/), and nic.cd does not resolve at all (http://dnsviz.net/d/nic.cd/WlON2A/dnssec/)

Patrick Mevzek
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I wrote to IANA and received the following answer last night:

Thank you for contacting us. The contact information in the IANA WHOIS database is the most up-to-date information we have for the .CD domain. We reached out to the .CD contacts and received a response from the technical contact. He told us that he has responded to your inquiry and referred you to the administrative contact for assistance.

Please note, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) does not accredit registrars or set registration policies for country code top-level domains (ccTLDs), such as .CD. While policy for global top-level domains such as .com and .info is managed through ICANN's global policy framework, policy for ccTLDs is based on the principle of subsidiarity. Managers are appointed within the country, under local laws, in conjunction with significantly interested parties and local government. ICANN has no power to be involved in how these operations are conducted.

In the meantime I also received a response from someone at contact@nic.cd who told me that my domain was renewed. As of now, I have now idea how to make sure this is indeed the case. Also, I haven't received an invoice yet. I will update this answer as I receive more information.

jfix
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