CIRA has announced that it has surpassed one million dot-ca domain name registrations. The Parti Quebecois is apparently not impressed – a member of the National Assembly has launched a petition to create a new dot-qc extension.
Dot-CA Hits One Million Registrations But PQ Not Impressed
April 16, 2008
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Not a matter of not being impressed
I have to say I’m happy to hear that the PQ is trying to get a dot-qc extension. I don’t think it’s really a matter of whether or not they’re ‘impressed’ with the number of dot-ca registrations. I can imagine a multitude of situations in which it would be advantageous to have access to a dot-qc domain: a national site that wants a localized, french-language version for Quebec could market it locally as Whatever.qc, or a local site that wants to clearly identify as local and not as national or international, etc. Given the different language, I think it would be generally beneficial to have a separate extension for Quebec.
In fact, I think the growing number of dot-ca registrations may be a reason they want to do it: if there was no interest in “localized” domains, and everyone was just registering dot-coms, then I don’t think they’d care. But with an obvious market for high-localization websites evidenced by the million-plus dot-ca’s, I think they see that the time is ripe.
ISO 3166 anyone?
Why cant they just go with .qc.ca, wouldn’t a .qc mean there would have to be a ISO 3166 standard for .qc meaning they would have to be their own country…
It breaks the system doesn’t it? I am sure they could apply for a larger than 2 character TLD tho sort of like the .cat for Catalan speaking community members, just not a 2 letter TLD which are reserved for ccTLD that exist in the ISO standard.
I agree with both posters above. It’s good if Quebec has it’s own extension since it is a unique region. They would probably get lose part of that if they are simply part of the .ca extension. I can see why they would want to have their own space.
Whether or not it’s qu.ca or .qc doesn’t matter much to me, and there probably are rules governing that.
RE: ISO 3166 anyone?
The Parti Quebecois should apply for .qc AFTER they win a provincial referendum on separation.
RE: ISO 3166 anyone?
Well, there’s a precedent with Catalonia, which has its own extention: .ct
Precedent..
.cat is the Catalonia gTLD, .ct does not exist, if it did it would be a ccTLD.
RE: ISO 3166 anyone?
Right.
I like .que – it looks rather stylish and might result in some nifty pronouncable URLs.
News
Quebec is on the net?
ICANN
I think the PQ may be in for a very long wait if they seriously think there’s even a chance the ICANN is going to launch a .qc extension. If on the other hand this is just a PR stunt to try to drum up some interest in separation they need to wake up and come to terms with the fact that the Québecois don’t want to separate.
ICANN and the Parti-Que.
I suspect that you’re right on that last point. The interest in independence has been waning these last few years, and le Garde Vieux(?) hasn’t gotten the hint yet.
If Kosovo is separate, and Canada recogn
… does Canada still have the right to remain united????