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Scotland wants its own domain name
In case you missed it, Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, has made a formal request to the ICANN to change the country’s website addresses to .sco as the Scottish National Party is to take its campaign for independence into the online realm by seeking to change the suffixes of all websites based in the country, from “.co.uk” to “.sco”.
This appeal is big news for Scots and it follows the awarding of local suffixes to Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. Also noteworthy, in 2005, the Spanish region of Catalonia won the right to its own “.cat” suffix.
It seems very clear that Scotland wants to promote its very own identity on the internet and the call for action, although formerly conducted through the likes of Christine Grahame, a Nationalist MSP, comes from the Scots themselves who claim that it would give their language and culture a higher profile.
While the move doesn’t intend to prevent Scots from using .co.uk, it does allow, however, for the possibility — and alternative — to use the Scottish-centric “.sco” domains. In addition, supporters of the idea deny it would cause unnecessary confusion because users keying in the old “.co.uk” addresses would be automatically redirected to the new ones.
Along the lines of the Scottish initiative, a campaign has also been launched for .cym to become a new Welsh internet domain name and for London to be the first city in the world to be given its own “.ldn” internet domain name.
In closing, the ICANN has stated that the Scottish government would be able to apply for a .sco domain when it accepts applications for new names later this year.
Tags: .sco., scotland, scottish, domains, domain name suffix, names, identity
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