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Iraq Wants .iq TLD 87

Posted by michael from the yourname@mensa.iq dept.
joelt49 writes "According to this USA Today article, via Yahoo! News, Iraq is seeking its own .iq Top-Level Domain (TLD). The Iraqi chairman of the National Communications & Media Commission, Siyamend Othman, said the .IQ domain name would allow Iraqis to stake a 'virtual flag' in the worldwide Internet community while American administrator Paul Bremer said it 'will signal to potential investors that Iraq is rebuilding for a high-technology future.' ICANN refuses to comment on specific applications, including this one."
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Iraq Wants .iq TLD More

Iraq Wants .iq TLD

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  • low.iq (Score:5, Funny)

    by thefatz ( 97467 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @08:02PM (#9341506) Homepage
    I can see problems with this. www.whatsyour.iq

    heh....

    new blog site: www.darls.iq
    • How about their former Deputy Prime Minister getting his own vanity site?
      tar.iq [globalsecurity.org]
    • I'm waiting for fantast.iq or automat.iq or something... how about pan.iq? ;)
      • Well, the domain administrator could place a stop to all the *.iq registrations by simply setting into place a number of *.(blank).iq domains like the UK does it e.g. oilcompany.co.iq university.ac.iq charity.org.iq kurdish.kd.iq internetcompany.net.iq government.gov.iq Going off topic... what about all those countries that aspire to independence and have no Top Level Domain available? What would Scotland use were it to become independent? .sc, .st are all taken. I guess .ab for the scottish Alba... or
        • What would Scotland use were it to become independent

          why of course they would move onto 3 letters and have .sco

          im guessing that with an inevitable licence fee that a certian company would try to impose, domains for scotland would be around, say 379.69 GBP per year?

  • Drat! (Score:3, Funny)

    by bergeron76 ( 176351 ) * on Friday June 04, 2004 @08:18PM (#9341599) Homepage
    ... I thought I had the top [level] IQ !!!

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @08:18PM (#9341600)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Why Not? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by silverfuck ( 743326 ) <dan.farmer@gCOBOLmail.com minus language> on Friday June 04, 2004 @08:22PM (#9341625) Homepage
    Seriously, why should any country, no matter how small or no matter how little of the population have access to the internet (6% in this case, according to the article), not have a TLD? Okay, I know that there will be an increasing number forever, but this is an old 'who can say where the line is drawn?' situation and the solution is the same as always: there should be no line. Every country should have a TLD.

    • Re:Why Not? (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Why should any country have a TLD? What do current geographic or historical ethnic boundaries have to do with organizing information on a network?

      • Re:Why Not? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by LMCBoy ( 185365 )
        It seems to me that country TLDs are a very sensible way to organize the network.

        Quick quiz: do you have different expectations for the content at these pairs of websites, based on their different TLDs?

        • www.kde.org / www.kde.de
        • www.amazon.com / www.amazon.co.uk
        • www.nra.org / www.nra.se

        • Actually, I expect that at some point in the [distant] future, domain names will be freed from such artificial restriction as TLD's. Then we'll be able to have names like "this.is.my.butt.crack" instead of goatse.cx. And if I wanted to give people those expectations you speak of I'd prepend de. or en. or organize things through the paths on the website. Seriously now, the only thing that does make a difference nowadays is the protocol name in the url (http://). Other than respecting the dots and a certain c
      • Exactly. It's completely useless and outdated. Internet should be without boundaries.
    • Every country should have a TLD.

      Sure, but who controls it? Even in democracies, policies for TLDs have been controversial. Of course, it's not like it's oil or anything.

    • You know you've been IMing too long when you almost say 'lol' out loud to a non-geeky friend...

      Lol happens to be a valid Dutch word meaning *fun* or *pleasure*.

      I take you never realised you spoke Dutch :-)

  • Why is ICANN even involved (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @08:31PM (#9341656) Journal
    To avoid political controversy, ICANN *specifically* chose to use ISO country codes. This should be specifically a problem for ISO, and if the ISO standard is updated, ICANN can use the new country codes.

    • Re:Why is ICANN even involved (Score:5, Informative)

      by SewersOfRivendell ( 646620 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @08:47PM (#9341720)
      IQ is Iraq's ISO country code. I assume this application is a legal formality of some kind.

    • To avoid political controversy, ICANN *specifically* chose to use ISO country codes. This should be specifically a problem for ISO, and if the ISO standard is updated, ICANN can use the new country codes.

      They haven't done that great a job of sticking to this in the past though - note it is .uk rather the .gb as it should be [www.iso.ch].

      • They haven't done that great a job of sticking to this in the past though - note it is .uk rather the .gb as it should be.

        No, it should be .uk. Looks like ISO ballsed this one up.

      • They haven't done that great a job of sticking to this in the past though - note it is .uk rather the .gb as it should be.

        That's because they'd probably get strung from lamp-posts if they tried to make it .gb.

        [BTW, .gb is a bit weird as a country-code in the first place, as the political unit is the United Kingdom, not "Great Britain". I wouldn't be surprised if it was the result of political horse-trading, what with the IRA and all that nastiness, etc.]

  • Good. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wizbit ( 122290 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @08:50PM (#9341731)
    Hard to see this as anything but good for Iraq. I like this step, but it'd go a ways further to rebuild their basic infrastructure (approx. 40% of Iraq still lacks potable water, electricity continues to be problematic to maintain, etc) - but with restrictions to basic freedom of information like the Great Firewall of China, I welcome any steps a free Iraq wants to take toward joining the online community.

    Truly, a great idea.
    • I like this step, but it'd go a ways further to rebuild their basic infrastructure

      Iraq can still make money to pay for this infrastructure from the TLD. A .iq domain name would get at least some money.
      Tuvalu's *.tv TLD was worth three times their GDP.

      Something gives me the feeling that that would be good for Iraq.
  • Aren't all ISO3166 alpha-2 country codes automatically ccTLDs?

  • It's a no-brainer :p

  • .IQ and U (Score:5, Informative)

    by g_lightyear ( 695241 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @04:47AM (#9343277) Homepage
    ccTLDs are indeed automatic - any nation officially recognized with the two-letter ISO code has the ability to get a TLD, and as you can see, one already exists.

    Here's the trouble.

    All ccTLDs, by their very nature, are a three-way agreement: a government, who actually owns the TLD; an operator, who operates the TLD, and ICANN, who provides rules and regulations. A previous Iraqi government agreed that the ccTLD operator was going to be the Texan company; however, they are now essentially demanding to be re-provided control. On the other hand, they will have existing contracts with the ccTLD that limit it - and those, if binding enough, could be difficult to break.

    Their argument, as always, is that they're a new government. A great many groups, across the world, would indeed love to get their hands on the TLD; so there's legal processes to take control over the TLD and become the official government responsible for it, as well as all of the legal wrangling with said Texan company, which probably has wholly unreasonable contracts with the previous government which are likely to still be legally binding.

    Asking ICANN to step in is a bit foolish, IMO - there's nothing that ICANN can really do to strip the Texan company of its ownership of the domain. Governments fought hard in the GAC, under Twomey, the current man at the top of ICANN, but then at the top of the GAC itself, to draw careful lines in the sand over what ICANN could and couldn't involve itself with.

    And have no doubt - with the way that the US government has handed out posts in the Iraqi government to contract out the airwaves, telecommunications, and other government contracts, even if we have this battle now, there's no doubt that all of these contracts will eventually get harsh reviews by a truly independent Iraqi government when those posts are relinquished back under the control of the Iraqi government in five years time, the length of control the U.S. will retain over those areas. That's "sovereignty" for ya - 'you can run your country, but we keep control over your resources'; keep the oil, but we keep everything else.

    After all, they rebuilt it, right? Doesn't matter if they blew it up first.

    • Re:.IQ and U (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Teancum ( 67324 )
      This just goes to show how lousy ICANN is in regards to internet governance, and how U.S.-centric the current relationship between ICANN and other governments is.

      Had the at-large directors really been given substantial responsibility rather than having ICANN being governed by commercial interests, this would have been a no-brainer and been dealt with as a routine matter. The fact that the "ultimate" arbitrator right now (and the only real claim to "legitimacy" by ICANN and any TLD contracts at all) is a b
    • Asking ICANN to step in is a bit foolish, IMO - there's nothing that ICANN can really do to strip the Texan company of its ownership of the domain.

      I don't think that's true under the circumstances. The Register [theregister.co.uk] has a good article on this.

  • ...does anybody wants to pre-register "you.have.a.very.low.iq" with me?

    or perhaps a joke about the bush administration would be appreciated by the iraqis. ...whops! i'm not politically correct! now sue me.

  • Point to note (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jb.hl.com ( 782137 )
    Iraq has no TLD.

    The Soviet Union, which may I remind you has been defunct for 13 years, possibly more, has got one, .su.

    Hmm....
    • > Iraq has no TLD.

      % whois iq ...or...
      http://www.iana.org/root-whois/iq.htm

      Looks like iraq to me. Been around since 1997. They're applying to run the .iq NIC, get their IP allocation, and so forth. None of this has probably never been in Iraqi hands before.

      > The Soviet Union, which may I remind you has been defunct for 13 years, possibly more, has got one, .su.

      Yes, and it's slated to go away. There's some dishonest operators selling .su vanity domains, but I doubt ICANN will be moved by it. So
  • I don't get it.
    What did Iraq's TLD used to be, "PS" (Persia)?
    I believe that the ISO CC for Iraq is "iq", and, therefore, "iq" should already be Iraq's TLD, because ICANNT uses the ISO CCs to determine countries' TLDs.
    What am I missing?

    • Re:I don't get it (Score:3, Informative)

      by magefile ( 776388 )
      Right now, the .iq registrar is a Texas company (presumably) chosen by the Saddam regime. The new regime wants control - presumably so they can either run the registry themselves, have it be run by a local (Iraqi) company, or negotiate a better contract with a different country. Any of which would give them a better deal, and maybe even a cash flow to the government or the economy as a whole.
    • Iraq was Mesopotamia, Iran is Persia. Don't confuse them -- Iranians (except for the leadership) speak Farsi and are not Arabs. We've never launched a war against Iran (although there was an ill-fated special forces mission to rescue the hostages back in 1980), and -- except for the leadership -- Iranians love the United States.
      • Oops. I did not mean to say that the Iranian leadership does not speak Farsi. That was an editing error. The Iranian leadership does not like the United States.

      • Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't America engineer the removal of the Shah and bring about rule by the Ayatollahs?

        • You're very right. That's why it's ironic that ordinary Iranians love Americans. They probably don't like American leadership (especially when they seem to be threatening Iran with invasion), and the Iranian leadership certainly doesn't like America or Americans. Thomas Friedman [nytimes.com] of the New York Times has written a lot about this. I'm not some right-wing apologist -- quite the contrary.

          Iran is strange -- its people, by and large, are trying to be more free, whereas its leadership is trying to hang onto

          • See, I find that interesting, because the last time I was in England (coincidentally, the first time I was in England) myself and my cohorts were actually accused of being Americans in disguise, as we were prominantly displaying Canadian flags, having heard about anti-American sentiment.

            • In one of the Friedman articles I read, he describes how everywhere in Iran he went this spring he was treated with courtesy, and sometimes people were eager to speak to him, buy him dinner, drinks, etc. The only time anyone gave him trouble was at a restaurant where some Europeans saw him, figured out he was American, and then verbally abused him about the war in Iraq.

  • Iraq already has .iq (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    More information about what happened to the .iq domain administrator:

    Iraq, its domain and the 'terrorist-funding' owner [theregister.co.uk]

    I guess journalists should learn how to use Google to improve their IQ.
  • What would be else the Iraq top level domain? Why make trouble because it have some er... "nice" sound?

    Anyway, it will depend a bit on how it will be used. I.e. here in Uruguay (.uy) you can't normally have yourdomain.uy, but yourdomain.com.uy, or .net.uy, or .edu.uy, .org.uy and .gub.uy. If in Iraq they have a similar policy the risk of being abused dillutes a lot.

    And there are far lower "uses" for an .iq domain than for other existing countries domains (i.e. Austria (.at), American Samoa (.as), Belgiu

  • I'm curious (Score:2, Interesting)

    by megaversal ( 229407 )
    I feel that a country should not be allowed to run their ccTLD from outside their country, and by the same token, I don't think people or businesses not affiliated in some way with the country, should be allowed to purchase domains from within that country's ccTLD.

    Are there some good reasons why one would want to go against this practice? I realize countries might not have the infrastructure to support running a ccTLD, but I think that's a larger problem... why does the country need an operational TLD if n

    • I feel that a country should not be allowed to run their ccTLD from outside their country,

      Why? Is there some inherent reason why a geographic domain has to be based in that country? Where would it make more sense to put the boxes, say, for handling the internet traffic for Antartica, at Casey or Scott Base at the south pole with severe conditions, expensive connections (if any, and probably low speed) and high possibility of equipment failure, or in (better reachable and less trouble to operate) Australi

      • The root of my point is that a ccTLD is for a specific country. I'm not saying .com is THE answer, but I don't think the ccTLDs should be used for outside purposes.

        Your points made me think of an alternative idea. Instead of "only that country can use that country's ccTLD," perhaps a second-level domain under the ccTLD that signifies "within the country." ie. local.us or something like that.

        Of course this made me think of yet another point =) Something like the removal of .gov in favor of gov.us, or maki
        • Of course this made me think of yet another point =) Something like the removal of .gov in favor of gov.us, or making it us.gov (and allowing all other countries to participate under the .gov TLD).
          There is currently a .FED.US domain...
    • Many of the CC TLD domains servers are run out of UC Berkeley. In some ways this make sense when you consider that many of the countries don't have even a 2mb link into the country. If someone decides to DDOS a CC TLD name server, UCB is a much better position to take the hit than some server tied off a slow 100 km link to a sat up link somewhere in the 3rd world. There are places where running the top level domain is best left to someone who understands the real world and can cope with the real issues.
  • former requirements for "national identity":
    -> language
    -> territory
    -> self-rule

    new requirements for "national identity"?
    -> language
    -> territory
    -> self-rule
    -> TLD
  • A nation's ccTLD is its national identity online. Their domains shouldn't be sold to just anyone. IMO, the guidelines for .fi make for a good set of rules to ensure the ccTLD in question serves the people of the country.

    Domain name speculators, look elsewhere. We have enough ccTLDs that have been exploited to death (catch a hint, .ws is for Samoa, NOT WebSite). The new government of Iraq deserves its own online identity. Let them have it.

    Call this a troll if you must. 'tis just the way I got it figu

  • If I were an iraqi webmaster:
    1. sell some of your hidden stash of arms
    2. register www.pr0n.iq
    3. [well, you know what]
    4. Profit ! /An IPO near you soon !

    [Plus, any dissidents there should pick up www.low.iq before USA's Republican Party registers it...:p ]
  • www.think.iq
    www.mensa.iq
    www.cantmatchmy.iq
    w w w.200.iq (I want this one!!)
    www.is-that-your-age-or-your.iq
    www.drugs -poison-your.iq
    Good business domain - www.test.your.iq

    And, of course, even though I'm a Republican and tired of the Bush jokes:
    www.bush.iq

    [NB: Based on his SAT scores (640,640) GW Bush's IQ is about 132, while JFK's was probably about 119. Hope I'm not starting a troll war...]

    Seriously, this will be an opportunity for the new TLD registry to be self-sustaining and even profitable very quickl
  • I thought this was a war for oil, now I realise, it was a war for a TLD! But seriously, Iraq should have it's own TLD, they could always sell it like Tuvalu did (.tv)

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