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Comment by rafram

6 months ago

.su is administered by the Russian national registry, because Russia is de facto the Soviet Union’s successor state. In this case, though, would .io stay with the UK or come under Mauritian control? It’s not clear.

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rafram

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andyjohnson0  6 months ago

Like the other remnants of the British Empire, the British Indian Ocean Territory was never a part of the UK. It was just land that we (the UK) expropriated from Mauritius at independence. A just solution would be for Mauritius, as the (now) actual successor state, to control dot-io.

IMO what will probably happen is that ICANN "promotes" the zone to being yet another top-level non-country code domain like .biz or .horse etc. Which is effectively what it is now.

Edit to add:

I don't think the .su precedent is applicable here. The Soviet Union was an internationally recognised state with a population, military, Montevideo Convention duties, seat at the UN, etc. The BIOT was and is nothing like that.

  • ifwinterco  6 months ago

    This isn't quite true for Ascension or the Falkland Islands, they were both uninhabited when discovered and they're not part of any existing country

    • andyjohnson0  6 months ago

      I'm not sure of the point you're making.

      Sure, there's a lot of evidence that they were "terra nullius" before being claimed for the British empire. But the Chagos archipelago was inhabited utill its population was compulsorily expelled in the mid twentieth century.

      I was surprised to discover that Ascension even has a ccTLD. I guess I assumed that the population was wholly military.

      1 reply →

the_mitsuhiko  6 months ago

> In this case, though, would .io stay with the UK or come under Mauritian control? It’s not clear.

Before the retirement of .yu, Slovenia wanted to hold on to it, but it was not the successor state of Yugoslavia so they had to relinquish control and pass it to Serbia. So going by that logic, it would not stay in the UK (for long).

  • zarzavat  6 months ago

    British Indian Ocean Territory isn’t a state, it’s just a territory with a military base on it, so there is no successor state.

    It’s like if Guantanamo Bay had its own ccTLD.

    The land will go to Mauritius, the legal entity of British Indian Ocean Territory will cease to exist (presumably).

    • toyg  6 months ago

      > The land will go to Mauritius

      Mauritius could decide to incorporate it as "Mauritius Indian Ocean Territory", hence maintaining the CC. I expect .io owners will likely suggest something like that, while showing them how much money they could get from a 10-15% deal similar to what Tuvalu has for .tv. Nobody likes to burn money.