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Africa Gets Its Own Web Address (bbc.com)

Posted by msmash on from the their-moment dept.

Africa now has the unique web address .africa, equivalent to the more familiar .com, following its official launch by the African Union. From a report on BBC: AU commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma hailed its creation as the moment when Africa "got [its] own digital identity." The AU says the .africa domain name will "bring the continent together as an internet community." Addresses can now reflect a company's interest in the whole of Africa. For example, a mobile phone company could create mobile.africa to show its Africa-wide presence, or a travel company could set up travel.africa.

5 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Same as .com by barbariccow · · Score: 4, Informative

    Equivalent to .com? What, we can't say TLD here? Slashdot: catering to the LCD :(

  2. Re:Too long, didn't type by Tempest_2084 · · Score: 4, Informative

    That would be I *bless* the rains down in Africa.

  3. Poor DNS configuration by Motherfucking+Shit · · Score: 3, Informative

    # host 0abaa55f4b4b5f8a9a55d1fe33f49a.africa
    0abaa55f4b4b5f8a9a55d1fe33f49a.africa has address 127.0.53.53
    0abaa55f4b4b5f8a9a55d1fe33f49a.africa mail is handled by 10 your-dns-needs-immediate-attention.africa.

    Great, they have some wildcard garbage going on instead of properly returning NXDOMAIN.

    --
    "BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
  4. Re:I TOTOly get it but.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    Unfair that this is modded redundant when it was posted 30 minutes before rvw14's comment. Note to moderators: order on page != order posted.

    Posting AC as I'm the first "Interesting +1" mode here.

  5. You are blatantly wrong by WML+MUNSON · · Score: 3, Informative

    Africa didn't get its own web address. Some company registered the Africa Top Level Domain (TLD). This company has total control over the TLD and likely has no relationship to the continent or any of the countries in it. In all likelyhood the registrant for the TLD is a European or American company hoping to make big bucks charging people to use the TLD. In 10 years 99.999999999% of the domains on this TLD will not even involve an African company or individual.

    You don't have a clue. A cursory Google search would tell you that it's operated by a South African company (ZACR), which was awarded control by ICANN following a lengthy legal dispute with a Kenyan competitor (DCA).