Wow, this is a sobering read. Britain is about to relinquish control of the British Indian Ocean Territory, meaning that the popular .io TLD could be on the way out (if the rules get followed). It will be interesting to see how this pans out (codepen.io, anyone?) I’ve always been tentative about using these kinds of domains that could turn on you one way or another (like those new custom domains that could jack up their prices, for example), but hadn’t thought about country-specific TLDs disappearing.
Interesting. Though the US and UK won’t be giving Diego Garcia back, they’ll be keeping that for another century (at least), and… they are at present the entire population of that area, with no plans to move people out… so… uhm… does the BIOT still exist? Kind of? It lost a lot of land, but the people are still there, and they have a defined space, so… i dunno.
It also requires a series of steps, starting with an actual approved treaty (they…havent actually gotten the paperwork sorted out. It’s been announced that it’s going to happen. An announcement of a plan to make a deal. Because governments), then the ISO people have to update the ISO, then IANA begins their clocks…
So in 2030, maybe it’ll be gone. Or maybe it’ll still linger on.
We can only speculate. Speculation is a great tool for generating long discussions and are unlikely to accomplish anything else. Unless it is possible for use to change the rules.
Is there anything preventing them from simply making the io TLD a non-country TLD?
Just a strict rule that when structure upon which a TLD is based dissolves that TLD then must be dissolved too. As the article explains, they got burned last time they vacillated on this issue. But of course, they could always decide to change or bend the rules … especially as there’s so much tech money behind .io. But currently the rules are that it must go — and soon.
Two-letter TLD’s are reserved for ccTLD’s, by their rules.
Though to be clear, ccTLD’s do not strictly translate to countries - the BIOT isnt a country, it’s a territory of Britain. There are many such Territorial “Country” top level domains (Puerto Rico, Antarctica, American Samoa, Greenland, etc.)
They derive the list from ISO-3166-1 alpha-2, the process of which is described in RFC 1591. (Though to be fair, RFC 1591 says there are 7 “generic TLDs” and the rest are ccTLD’s from ISO-3166, and “It is extremely unlikely that any other TLDs will be created” … yeaahhhh… about that… 30 years changes a lot, because 1591 comes from March of 1994.)
Though i have just noticed that Diego Garcia has already got an Especially Reserved code - DG, so presumably anything currently residing under IO would be transferred to DG.
I dont… see any argument there that supports the thesis other than “but its got a lot of money in it”.
He cites .YU - which DID get removed…and then wanders off of tangents about how nonrelated domains in other ccTLDs should be worried because…the countries theyre in are unstable? which would imply he thinks they would get removed? Isnt that making the case AGAINST his article’s point?
I think he’s rather implying that they might get unpredictable, such as jacking up prices without warning, or perhaps mandating that they can only be used by their own citizens etc.