June 03, 2004
.la domain names (and .tv, .fm and others...)

Call me a traditionalist, but I think it's incorrect and mis-informing by the domain name company(/ies) that sell domain names under the .la domain name to insinuate that they are anything else than belonging to the People's democratic republic of Lao.

Seen on the homepages of one such registrar:

Los Angeles is the world's first and only city to receive its own unique Internet address. A .LA suffix is a must-have web address for the 300,000 registered businesses and 10 million citizens of the world's most exciting metropolis.

Louisiana is first state with it's own unique Internet address. From Plantation Country and Cajun Country to the Big Easy, LA is the Web Address for all Louisiana. FYI - Louisiana Ranked 4th Overall in "Best States for E-Commerce" according to a study by The Progressive Policy Institute. Now is the time to Get an LA name!

That's all bollocks. Top Level Domain names (TLDs) are assigned to countries according to the ISO 3166 naming standard. Similarly .fm and .tv has nothing to do with radio and television, they are simply the TLDs serving as geographic indicators of domains registered at the Federated States of Micronesia and Tuvalu.

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I believe the countries that hold the ccTLDs like .LA are allowing them to be sold by companies like nic.la, as though they are for Los Angeles, so that they can earn income for their country. Besides, it is offensive to these countries to have been given an english TLD as though that is some sort of gift. Why should they have to switch to an English keyboard to use the internet?

If you want to see some real interesting and appropriate new TLDs, take a look at TheNewDot.Com Multilingual, Internationalized Domain Names (IDN). These are completely new TLDs in native languages. No more .com or .net or .la, etc. Countries can now be proud to have their own native language represented in the domain name 100%!

Posted by: The-New-Dot.Com Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) on November 19, 2004 06:29 AM

There is an IDN converter at http://mct.verisign-grs.com/conversiontool.

If you can't see the following new Chinese TLD that replaces .com: 。公司 (.gongsi) which stands for .company, then you can see the graphic at http://www.the-new-dot.com.. The new TLDs are implemented and backed by the Chinese government.

Posted by: The-New-Dot.Com on December 4, 2004 01:24 AM

I was going to buy a .LA for my london based business. The only reason being is that I could get almost anything I liked. All the .co.uk's have gone and .com's....

What you mention above is only marketing speak and most people with a third of a brain know that these types of TLD's have been "borrowed" from miniscule, inconsequential nations. I doubt there are many people in Laos who have web access. Anybody know any stats on that?

I get your point though.

Posted by: Nick Breeze on March 9, 2005 07:31 PM
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Wortfeld: increaseyour.iq (June 4, 2004 08:50 PM)
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