gccTLD's, fccTLD's, pccTLD's?

[AdoptableDomains]

I see a lot of categorization of TLD's. We all know that gTLD's are Generic (or Global) TLD's, that sTLD's are Sponsored, and that ccTLD's are country code TLD's. However, every time I see ccTLD, I wonder what that really means, as it seems to be a fairly grey area these days. Technically .ws, .cc, and .tv are ccTLD's, even thought they have pretty much been sold by their original countries. The .cc TLD is from a "country" that has a population of only 574 people, and is a territory of Australia. In some sense, I have a hard time thinking of at least .ws, .tv, and .cc as true "country code" domains any more, since they've pretty much lost the identity of (or marketed without regard to) the country and taken on new meanings. Additionally, most have no ties with the original country any more. I think .cc and .ws were pretty much sold outright. I believe Tuvalu has more of a lease type arrangement with a percentage of the take on registrations.

Should we now refer to these as something like Generic ccTLD's (gccTLD), former ccTLD's (fccTLD), Pseudo ccTLD's (pccTLD), maybe openTLD's or omTLD's (open market), or possibly just tlTLd's (two letter) or uccTLd's (unrestricted ccTLD's)? They really are a different breed of ccTLD without a real name. Unlike most geographic ccTLD's we come accustomed to NOT associating websites on these domains to those countries.

Not entirely serious here, but thought maybe it might create some discussion. When someone mentions ccTLDs, I often wonder if they also mean the three open/former ones mentioned above, or just the more legitimate ones still owned or operated by their country.

 

[accent]

There are a number of countries that are trying to cash in on their CCTLD's by opening them to the world and, to a large or smaller degree promoting them. Then there are those like Norway, who owns a couple island CCtlds and have placed notices to the effect that they would not dream of commercializing the internet and speculators should get lost.

All in all it seems a fertile area to pick up top key word and ultra short domains, yet the danger is that there is so little interest in the area and the registration fees are so high that you could lose a lot of money before the public discovers that they can get their keywords in other tlds than .com.

 

[wasistdas]

Muahaha. Good topic, Adoptie! LOL!

 

[AdoptableDomains]

to be a little more to the point, I guess I think of ccTLD's as geographic or geopolitical in nature (at least that's the way they were intended). There are some faily open TLD's like .in or .cn that are still strongly considered associated with that geography or country. Even if like Belize, they just reserve third level domains like *.gov.bz and *.com.bz for their own citizens. However, .cc, .ws, and .tv have gone out of their way to try to distance the TLD from their geopolitical origin. In my mind, this somehow makes them different than a pure ccTLD.

 

[accent]

You think there should be a name for those -- how about "open CCTLD's" ? Perhaps that is too long but it does get the idea.

And what about .LA? They push it as Los Angeles, (and Louisania, Latin America) even though it is Laos. Afilias runs it, they really should promote it more. (Hint Hint)