This piece of information might be slightly outdated, but it is nonetheless worth mentioning. On September 16th, I wrote about ICANN’s approval of the .cat top level domain (TLD). It was certainly a big deal. The decision to open way to so called “cultural and/or linguistic” domains, starting with Catalonia, where the debate about the domain is a direct reflection of local nationalist feelings and a very hot topic on everyone’s political agenda, was an unprecedented one.
My question at the time was quiet simple: What next? Had ICANN considered the repercussions both in Spain and worldwide?
Well, just recently, there was already been a new development to get both you and ICANN to think about it more seriously. Early this month, local Galician (A province in northern Spain) Association was formed to request the…you guessed it…the .gal TLD. Before the .cat anyone would have laughed off the request, but with .cat behind us with now 3,000 registered .cat domains, 10,000 new requests and registration open to individuals, the approval of the .gal domain is not so unrealistic.
Like the Catalonian Association, the Galician one formed by a number of professional groups, local governmental bodies and nationalist groups, is called PuntoGal (“Dot Gal). PuntoGal is petitioning for the .gal domain for the very same reason PuntoCal did, to offer a cultural and linguistic internet space of Galicians. Of course, they will have to jump through a number of hoops to receive approval, but the precedent has been set! For now, they are evaluating similar cases and calling for all local support before presenting their candidacy.
If there is news of similar cases in other parts of the world, feel free to share it.
Source:
El Mundo
Noticiasdot
Marina Zaliznyak
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