Inactive extentions' statuses

[Gerrit]

Sorry for bringing on rather obscure topics, but as I said I am very interested in the whole domainnames world in a different way than just wanting to buy and sell, I like finding out about the more obscure and lesser-known extentions as well.

A few extentions are currently approved and recognised by ICANN, though it seems they are unused for a long time. Does anyone know about their current usage and eventual possibilities for future registrations?


.AQ - Antarctica - the domains seem up and running, though no registration system is running currently, registry doesn't answer any email of mine
.BV - Bouvetøya - extention owned by Norway but not used
.EH - Western Sahara - occupied territory but recognised by several international organisations, ccTLD has been approved by ICANN though never been used it seems...
.PM - St Pierre and Miquelon - French overseas archipelago, seems inactive extention although few domains are used
.SJ - Svalbard and Jan Mayen - Norway owns the ccTLD, though not sure if it will be used in near future?
.VA - Vatican City - only the websites of the Vatican and of Pope Benedict XVI use it. Is there a way to get a .VA soon without becoming pope?


Apart from that, the registries for Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic seem down although several sites are active using their ccTLD's...

 

[fonzie_007]

Fascinating... I never knew antartica actually had a cctld.

 

[Kate]

There are a few .aq domains active.
They are free but you need some sort of local presence (or regular trips to the ice). In other words it's difficult unless you are a government.
Some TLDs are reserved like .eh but not delegated yet.
For instance North Korea has .kp but they do not use it AFAIK.

 

[dhscott]

It'd be interesting to see how one could register certain domains like these. Most answers would be no ofcourse but you might come up with a winner, say if you are serving on the Falkland Islands (UK Protectorate), could you purchase loads of domains when you are down there and still legally own them when you leave?

It sounds like quite a good money maker to me as you would get LLL.EXT domains easily, as well as sought after names like poker.EXT etc.

The way to go is the .tk way and allow outsiders to register domains, although minus the crappy free short URL part!

 

[Gerrit]

.AQ will probably not be open to people with an obsessive passion for the poles? (like me, I'd fancy an .AQ domain obviously given my polar passions )

.CO.FK is not inactive at all (anyone living at the Falklands can register them) so is completely different from .BV, .SJ, .VA, .EH, etc

Vatican City's extention .VA used to have a website www.nic.va so that indicates they did consider regular registrations at some point. I emailed their registry but never got an answer. The Pope and his administration use the extention but that seems to be about it.