“Catalonia has a TLD, so why not Wales?”

So asks Peter Black AM (Assembly Member).

So the Welsh are going for .CYM, a gTLD (three letters or more — ccTLDs are two-letter codes), following the lead of Catalonia’s .CAT.

According to a BBC article, the Welsh Assembly voted to approve a campaign to get .CYM added to the root. If you’d like to support this Welsh effort, you can sign a petition — 5,000 signatures already collected.

It will have to get ICANN’s say-so, however, and that won’t be easy. ICANN’s Board grants new TLDs as rarely as ICANN CEO Paul Twomey flies economy class, even though it costs $50,000 (non-refundable) just to apply for a TLD, when and if the board condescends to consider applications.

Meanwhile, when I search on .cym, Google asks, with perfect insouciance, “Did you mean .com?”

(Scotland, which rejected a subdomain under .uk, has likewise started a gTLD campaign for .SCO)

Links:

• Spearheading the drive: DotCym. You can sign the petition here (server down at this writing)
• A Welsh View
• Pixelwave
• Welsh Politics
• TechDigest.tv
• Gog with a Blog
• TechItalia

Via TechItalia

Update: I should have mentioned that “CYM” is short for “Cymru” which is “Wales” in Welsh. Anyone know how to pronounce that?

Tags: Wales, .CYM, ICANN, new TLDs, , SCO, why not

Posted by Antony in: Domains