http://www.opendemocracy.net/virtual_countries_0 Comments for "Virtual Countries, " en http://www.opendemocracy.net/virtual_countries_0#comment-433158 Your post raises an interesting point, but I'm not sure, in the end, that it holds true. Does a country really have the right to it's own .com? And why was the Republic of South Africa not concerned with the person who had registered http://www.therepublicofsouthafrica.com, since that is the country's official name. Don't you think there might be some authorities who would be quite relieved that, by the time they got online, some clever domain name-squatter had already registered http://www.formeryugoslavrepublicofmacedonia.com, or indeed http://www.theunitedkingdomofgreatbritainandnorthernireland.com? Your argument that country names are obvious examples of natural marks doesn't convince in the global internet sphere. The internet is not constrained by national boundaries and a country is full of inhabitants who have the equal right to mark out there own space on the net. Further, the innovation that language allows means there are infinite ways of creating new, semantically relevant domain names. Look at http://www.del.icio.us, and the hundreds of broadcast enterprises who borrow the top level domain names of Tuvalu (.tv) and the Federal State of Micronesia (.fm). Thu, 24 Nov 2005 16:00:50 +0000 becky.hogge@opendemocracy.net comment 433158 at http://www.opendemocracy.net http://www.opendemocracy.net/virtual_countries_0 One can understand the frustration of developing countries with the current regime of internet governance. Several years ago, the South African Government was upset that a Seattle company called Virtual Countries Inc. had registered the domain name, <i>southafrica.com</i>. The Republic of South Africa issued a press release on the 30th October 2000. The Department of Communications stated its position that ‘countries have the first right to own their domain names’. The Republic of South Africa further stated that it intended to file an application by 10 November 2000 to assert its rights over southafrica.com. It also mentioned its submissions to a number of international organisations to reform the law regarding domain names and the geographical names of countries. The Press Release stated that the Republic of South Africa ‘could be the first country in the world to make a challenge for the right to own its own domain name in the largest of the high-level domain names - dot.com’. &nbsp;<a href="http://www.opendemocracy.net/virtual_countries_0" class="read-more" title="Read the rest of this posting.">Read the rest of this post...</a><p><a href="http://www.opendemocracy.net/virtual_countries_0">read more</a></p> http://www.opendemocracy.net/virtual_countries_0#comment Governing the Net media &amp; the net Wed, 16 Nov 2005 22:18:42 +0000 matthew.rimmer@anu.edu.au 32733 at http://www.opendemocracy.net