- Apr 4, 2009
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Britain's withdrawal from another former colony could have consequences for thousands of businesses.
When the island group of Mauritius became independent in 1968, not all islands that had long been considered part of the country were included. Britain had three years earlier budged off the Chagos Islands and let the US build a military base on the island of Diego Garcia, while the inhabitants were forced to move.
The countries have been at loggerheads over the Chagos Islands ever since - until last week when the new British government announced that a deal had been reached to return the entire Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Britain and the US get a 99-year lease on Diego Garcia, but the rest of the islands are to be repopulated.
What does this have to do with Internet TLDs? Well, the Chagos Islands – which Britain has called the British Indian Ocean Territory – have their own ISO country code: IO. But since the "country" now disappears when it becomes part of Mauritius, ISO is expected to quickly remove the country code.
The IANA bases its list of top-level domains for different countries and regions ("ccTLDs") on the ISO's list, and when IO no longer exists, the IANA will follow suit and shut down the .io top-level domain, writes historian Gareth Edwards at Every.to . The organization actually has a detailed process for how this is done.
It normally takes five years for a country code top-level domain to expire after a decision to retire it, but administrators can request an extension of up to five years, so in total .io domains can remain for ten years. However, the rules state that new registrations of domains with the retired TLD must cease as soon as possible.
Gareth Edwards writes that nothing is written in stone and that IANA could decide to make a special exception for .io. Maybe Mauritius can take over the code as an alternative TLD for the archipelago. What speaks for some kind of settlement is that there are thousands of companies using the TLD. What speaks against it is that IANA has bitter experience of similar incidents, including when the .su domain (for the Soviet Union) was kept and given to Russia as an alternative to .ru. Over the years, that top-level domain has become something of a wild west, writes Gareth Edwards.
Source: https://every.to/p/the-disappearance-of-an-internet-domain
Source2: https://www.iana.org/help/cctld-retirement
Do you guys own some .io domains?
When the island group of Mauritius became independent in 1968, not all islands that had long been considered part of the country were included. Britain had three years earlier budged off the Chagos Islands and let the US build a military base on the island of Diego Garcia, while the inhabitants were forced to move.
The countries have been at loggerheads over the Chagos Islands ever since - until last week when the new British government announced that a deal had been reached to return the entire Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Britain and the US get a 99-year lease on Diego Garcia, but the rest of the islands are to be repopulated.
What does this have to do with Internet TLDs? Well, the Chagos Islands – which Britain has called the British Indian Ocean Territory – have their own ISO country code: IO. But since the "country" now disappears when it becomes part of Mauritius, ISO is expected to quickly remove the country code.
The IANA bases its list of top-level domains for different countries and regions ("ccTLDs") on the ISO's list, and when IO no longer exists, the IANA will follow suit and shut down the .io top-level domain, writes historian Gareth Edwards at Every.to . The organization actually has a detailed process for how this is done.
It normally takes five years for a country code top-level domain to expire after a decision to retire it, but administrators can request an extension of up to five years, so in total .io domains can remain for ten years. However, the rules state that new registrations of domains with the retired TLD must cease as soon as possible.
Gareth Edwards writes that nothing is written in stone and that IANA could decide to make a special exception for .io. Maybe Mauritius can take over the code as an alternative TLD for the archipelago. What speaks for some kind of settlement is that there are thousands of companies using the TLD. What speaks against it is that IANA has bitter experience of similar incidents, including when the .su domain (for the Soviet Union) was kept and given to Russia as an alternative to .ru. Over the years, that top-level domain has become something of a wild west, writes Gareth Edwards.
Source: https://every.to/p/the-disappearance-of-an-internet-domain
Source2: https://www.iana.org/help/cctld-retirement
Do you guys own some .io domains?
