Does a top level domain make a nation?
For centuries the trappings of nationhood have been flags, crests, mottos and crowns. Now they are joined by country-code top-level domains - nation-specific suffixes of web addresses like “.us” (United States) or “.fr” (France).
And, boy, are they complicated. Changing a nation’s letterheads to reflect a new flag might seem a big job - but changing a TLD sounds like a nightmare.
Take the latest minutes from ICANN - the organisation that oversees the assignment of domain names and TLDs. The minutes concern the very complex problems associated with the collapse of Yugoslavia.
The country originally had the TLD “.yu” but in 2003 the Federation of Serbia and Montenegro that came after was assigned “.cs” by ICANN. That domain had previously belonged to Czechoslovakia before it was split into the Czech Republic (.cz) and Slovakia (.sk). But when the Federation of Serbia and Montenegro of split into two in 2006, ICANN had to come up with two more TLDs. Serbia was assigned “.rs” and Montenegro “.me“.
Confused? It gets worse. Both countries are still using “.yu” but ICANN’s meeting resulted in a resolution that all “.yu” sites should be reassigned to either “.rs” or “.me” over the next three years.
The decommissioning of the TLDs for East Germany (.dd) and Zaire’s (.zr) transformation into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (.cd) all went without problems. So the “.yu” affair may yet pass off smoothly.
But there are bigger problems on the horizon. One address that hasn’t been retired is “.su” - assigned to the Soviet Union in 1990. It is still operating despite the country no longer existing, and despite the “.ru” TLD assigned to Russia in 1994.
There are currently 9648 sites under the domain. And apparently it is getting more popular - this time last year there were only 7206. Add to this the fact that the body operating “.su” has cut prices in response to an ICANN request to freeze new registrations, and the number of ex-Soviet sites that will have to be reassigned, and you have one almighty mess.
It makes the much-publicised wrangles over the “.xxx” domain seem tiny by comparison. And it convinces me of the need to reevaluate the existence of the US Dept of Commerce-backed non-profit organisation that is ICANN. The current squabbles are petty compared to the diplomatic arguments that TLDs could cause. An international body like the UN would be a more appropriate overseer, surely?