Scottish Nationalists Seek TLD

The Sunday Times carried a story this weekend that Scotland is seeking its own TLD.

DotSco plans on presenting its case to ICANN later this year.

There has been some heated discussion of the topic on one of the Nominet private members’ lists, but whether this will translate into the kind of reasoned argument that could allow for the establishment of new TLD is another matter.

Presumably DotSco will be in attendance at the next ICANN meeting in Paris, so it might be a good opportunity for them to make themselves heard.

Of course if Scotland were to get .sco, what would happen with Wales and Northern Ireland?

When it comes to new TLDs there seem to be three main divisions;

• No new TLDs – there’s enough already
• Have as many as you want
• New TLDs should be allowed, but only where warranted

The main issue with any new TLD will be funding. A mismanaged TLD can do more harm than good, so hopefully the people involved with DotSco will learn from other people’s mistakes.

The current DotSco site gives the impression that it was only setup in the last few weeks, however some digging reveals references on the ICANN site dating back to August of 2007 and on further research I came across references dating back to 2005.