In fact .CO.UK is a powerful domain name and it is recognized as one of the British trademarks. During the past few years Scotland, Wales and even England have started to rock the boat by requesting their own top level domain (TLD) - .SCO, .CYM and .ENG respectively.



The first to express a want to separate from .CO.UK was Scotland. Back in 2005 dotSCO.org website was established by Evan McCreath, who launched and still maintains a campaign stating that “Scots’ language and culture is a community that we believe should be identified with its own domain [...]”

2006 saw Wales stepping in. dotCYM.org was established and the support of Welsh Assembly and the Welsh deputy first minister Ieuan Wyn Jones they have reached a certain advance. Today (6 August, 2008) Mr Jones has officially announced that Wales plan to apply for its own TLD .CYM and £20,000 will be allocated for research and lobbying.

In April this year a campaign was launched by Stuart Turton of dotENG.org to fight for English own top level domain - .ENG.

Other cultural communities wishing to have their own domain include Brittany (.BZH), Galicia (.GAL), Quebec, Canada (.QC) and even the Cornwall county of the UK. Cornwall is known as Kernow in Cornish language and hence the domain name extension - dotKER.

The only successful community domain campaign to date is the Catalan (.CAT) quest for their TLD in 2005. The result is dotCAT!

To be honest, if we look at these ideas on the background of ICANN being keen on introducing new domain extensions, it is possible that these campaigns might be successful.

What do you think?

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