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Texas Company's Legal Troubles Hold .iq In Limbo

Posted by timothy on from the snafu-global-infrastructure-style dept.

aducore writes "According to The Inquirer, the (American) company running the Iraqi .iq domain name .iq is under criminal indictment and cannot transfer control. So no Iraqi organization can get a .iq domain name, including the government. Iraq's National Communications and Media Commission and the U.S. administrator in Iraq are trying to get ICANN to free up the domain."

2 of 337 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The question has to be asked... by ranmachan · · Score: 5, Informative

    From TFA:

    |According to a report from AP, the problem started
    |in 1997, when Saddam Hussein's dictatorship was
    |blocking access to the Internet.

    |An ICANN body granted responsibility for the ".iq"
    |domain to InfoCom a Texas-based company and
    |purveyor of computers and Web services in the Middle East.

    So they gave it to them because the rulers of Iraq did not allow internet access at the time.

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    Tobias
  2. Re:No hurry? by hyperlinx · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, i'm in Iraq now, and the infrastructure is in poor shape in many areas, but the cities are getting around 4-16 hours of electricty each day and fresh water is available in most areas too....the main roads and highways are mostly ok too, some potholes, but i've seen worse in ohio and pennsylvania!...there is however a booming (no pun intended) computer market in baghdad, and there's been a couple of reporters who mentioned they can get some kind of dsl service there at like 256k....there's also a linux users group at http://www.iraqilinux.org/...u only hear the bad things on the news, but we (the iraqis and us) have been able to reopen like 1200 schools, the hospitals, and even the colleges. Entrepreneurs are opening up shops again, and they should get their IQ domain back....

    --
    In /.space, no one can hear you SCREAM!