Registries

The French registry AFNIC sent out a press release late last week to highlight its new partnership with GS1 France, the local chapter of a global network of more than a million companies whose aim is to promote technological standardisation.

GS1 is at the forefront of ONS, the Object Naming System often dubbed "the Internet of things" which uses RFID tags to label products. AFNIC and GS1 France have already started working together on the European ONS root.

While all this ONS talk is fascinating, the real point of interest for me here is the reason why AFNIC is branching out in this way. While obviously linked to DNS, ONS is a different kettle of fish. The reason AFNIC is getting into it is simple: the French registry is giving itself options and planning for the future.

AFNIC is still waiting on the French government to put the management of the French namespace out to tender (expect some kind of announcement early next year). Until that happens, its position as the .FR registry will remain, if not precarious, at least possibly unsafe. So AFNIC General manager Mathieu Weill is exploring new avenues and making sure that the expertise AFNIC has developed over the years is used for other things besides domain names.

A wise business decision I think. Even if some may ask if a not-for-profit registry should be run as a business…