Slashdot Mirror
Iraq Wants .iq TLD
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."
IQ is Iraq's ISO country code. I assume this application is a legal formality of some kind.
From http://www.iana.org/root-whois/iq.htm:
.iq - Iraq
Sponsoring Organization:
Alani Corp.
c/o InfoCom
630 International Parkway
Richardson, Texas 75081
United States
Administrative Contact:
Saud Alani
Alani Corporation
c/o InfoCom
630 International Parkway
Richardson, Texas 75081
United States
Email: alani@mynet.net
Voice: +964 1 556 4753
Fax: +1 972 644 8609
Technical Contact:
Bayan Elashi
InfoCom Corporation
630 International Parkway
Suit 100
Richardson, Texas 75081
United States
Email: bayan@infocomusa.com
Voice: +1 972 644 5363
Fax: +1 972 644 8609
Domain Servers:
ns1.mynet.net 63.175.195.20
ns2.mynet.net 208.21.175.13
URL for registration services: None listed.
Whois server: None listed.
Record last updated - 13-October-2002
Record created - 09-May-1997
-
Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
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.
-- A mind is a terrible thing.
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.
More information about what happened to the .iq domain administrator:
Iraq, its domain and the 'terrorist-funding' owner
I guess journalists should learn how to use Google to improve their IQ.
InfoCom Corporation, current holder of the .IQ TLD, has gotten into big trouble for aiding terrorists. Note that this isn't the same Infocom that made Zork and all of the other adventure games. They no longer exist, but there are several Infocom fan sites available.
http://www.4law.co.il/L1.htm for more information about the arrests of Infocom owners for aiding terrorists.