Iraqis now look for freedom in cyberspace
August 7th, 2005
Iraq wants to administer and control the internet domain name .’iq’. The domain name is technically under the control of a Texas-based company called InfoCom, whose owner is a Palestinian, Bayan Elashi. Bayan Elashi is currently on trial in a US federal court for funding the hardline Palestinian movement, Hamas. This could one of the reasons the Iraqi government want the domain name under their control.
The US-led Coalition Provisional Authority recently conducted a survey of internet use in Iraq and only about 6% of Iraqis said they have internet access and only 2% said they use it regularly. I don’t know how reassigning control over the .iq domain will help improve these figures but many Iraqi officials are optimistic that it will help educate people about the internet in Iraq.
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Interesting and sad. Some of my favorite flickrers are from Iraq.
I don’t understand their reasoning. Can’t they also get a “.com.iq” address and just move on?
I guess they could but the .iq is still out there and to think of some terrorist owning that domain isnt what they want.
I say why not? No good people lose if the TLD is re-assigned to Iraq … except one of suspected of funding terrorism.
Also with .com.iq, you still need to get control of .iq since in this case, .iq is still top level. This is comparable to Asian domain names such as the Philippines where you can easily get .ph or .com.ph.
Thanks Vern, that makes it clear.
Ajay
There is also the revenue implications of course.. Whoever controls the .iq controls the renewal revenue for that tld..
With Iraq looking to improve its technical abilities and with the US wanting Iraq to emmerge from the current conflict as an example to the rest of the middle east I think there will be HUGE revenue potential for whoever owns the rights to the .iq tld!
Nice rotating “Did you know” facts by the way.. I could hit the refresh button all day!
Thanks Gamblor, we have thank one of my friends for that.
Ajay