Companies with a promising future, products that create added value and innovative ideas in the Internet industry are assessed every year by the jury of scientists, industry experts and trade journalists that decides who will be granted the coveted eco Award. In the "Domains" category, it was DENIC eG who convinced the jury this year. What is so special about DENIC's prize-winning escrow solution? By choosing DENIC as their escrow provider, customers are enabled to comply with their escrow obligations under European law. It is in particular the combination of computer centers located in Europe as the only place for storing the data and the freedom to choose the place of jurisdiction and arbitration within Europe that make the DENIC Data Escrow Service unique. To become an accredited escrow provider, DENIC has successfully passed the multi-stage accreditation process of the US-American supervisory authority ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).

Award Confirms Added Value for Domain Industry

The accreditation by ICANN authorises DENIC to provide data escrow services for registrars and registry operators of generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs). In addition to that, DENIC is a Designated Escrow Agent for registrars. This means that ICANN-accredited registrars can use DENIC's escrow services free of charge, financed by ICANN. "The eco Award confirms that our commitment to creating a strictly European escrow solution for the domain industry provides real added value," said DENIC COO Andreas Musielak. The marketing of the escrow services is performed by DENIC's wholly-owned subsidiary DENIC Services GmbH & Co. KG, which specialises in optimal customer service.

ICANN Requires Obligatory Escrowing of Domain Data

The described escrow obligation is based on requirements imposed by ICANN: The Internet Corporation requests all registrars and registries it has accredited to regularly store the data sets of the domains managed by them with an independent escrow provider. In the event that a registrar or registry should no longer be able to provide its domain services, ICANN can appoint a party who will continue business operations on the basis of the stored data.

DENIC Initiative ID4me a Second Candidate in the Final Round

With the Single Sign-On solution ID4me, another development of DENIC was nominated as one of the three candidates of the final round in the "Domains" category. ID4me gives Internet users full control over their digital identity and enables them to govern the use of theirpersonal data. Unlike other Single Sign-On solutions, ID4me uses only open standards. DENIC is one of the initiators of ID4me and has made an inaugural contribution to the technical development of the domain-based application. For the advancement and propagation of the Internet identity application, the non-profit organisation ID4me AISBL was founded. To learn more about ID4me, go to https://id4me.org/.

The renowned Internet award has been granted since 1999. Ever since, the Association of the Internet Industry eco has honoured innovative and forward-looking businesses and projects every year. For further information and other winners of the 2018 award, please go to https://international.eco.de/eco-award-2018/award-2018/.