Africa Gets Its Own Web Address (bbc.com)

Posted by msmash on Friday March 10, 2017 @06:40AM 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.

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The Summary is Blatently Wrong by rahvin112 · 2017-03-10 09:35 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.