How a UK treaty could spell the end of the .io domain

A pact finalized by the UK whitethorn bring astir the extremity of the .io domain. Last week, the British authorities announced that it has agreed to springiness up ownership of the Chagos Islands, a territory successful the Indian Ocean it has controlled since 1814 — relinquishing the .io domain with it.

But first, let’s instrumentality a measurement backmost (and I mean far back) to spot however we got here. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Chagos Islands were settled by the French successful the 1700s, who brought slaves to the archipelago. In 1814, the French ceded power of the Chagos Islands and the land state of Mauritius to the British. When the British took over, the Chagos Islands remained a dependency of Mauritius.

In 1965, the UK granted Mauritius its sovereignty, but the authorities decided to divided disconnected the Chagos Islands, making it a British Indian Ocean Territory. The UK ended up forcibly removing the Chagossian radical truthful the US could physique a subject basal connected 1 of the islands, displacing much than 1,500 people, arsenic elaborate successful this report from Human Rights Watch.

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Eventually, the Chagos Islands — oregon the British Indian Ocean Territory — were fixed the IO state code. It was besides assigned a matching .io state codification domain in 1997. The British authorities granted the rights to merchantability .io domains to the Internet Computer Bureau (ICB), according to a 2014 study from GigaOm.

A country’s authorities is typically expected to person gross for immoderate sites that registry utilizing their state codification domain. For example, Anguilla, which has the state codification AI, was projected to make betwixt $25 cardinal and $30 million past twelvemonth from websites registering with the .ai domain.

You’d deliberation the Chagos Islands would marque akin amounts of wealth from the .io domain. After all, thousands of buzzy tech startups and cryptocurrency companies — similar itch.io, greenhouse.io, and opensea.io — adopted the domain, since “io” besides serves arsenic an abbreviation for “input/output.”

However, entrepreneur Paul Kane, who antecedently ran the ICB, told GigaOm that the British authorities collected immoderate of the revenue, which came arsenic a astonishment to the Chagossian people. In 2020, the Chagossians submitted a claim to summation ownership of what they said was a $50 cardinal property, as reported by Fortune.

But now, the UK’s finalized statement volition marque the Chagos Islands portion of Mauritius — a determination Chagossians accidental the government didn’t adjacent consult them on. With this change, the British Indian Ocean Territory is nary more, calling into question the aboriginal of the .io domain.

Since then, IANA has besides had to discontinue the .yu domain antecedently utilized for Yugoslavia, but it remained operational for years pursuing the country’s breakup portion authorities websites transitioned to caller domains. And portion the autarkic Solomon Islands does person the domain sanction .sb, wherever “B” stands for however it utilized to beryllium a British protectorate, that domain was registered decades aft it achieved independence. The UK inactive has the inactive .gb domain arsenic well, but it’s considering getting escaped of it.

For now, it’s inactive excessively aboriginal to archer what volition go of the .io domain — whether it volition spell done a akin transitional play similar .yu, oregon if the IANA volition conscionable fto the Chagossans support it. The Verge reached retired to Identity Digital — the domain registrar that antecedently obtained the rights to merchantability .io domains — and IANA for accusation astir .io’s future. We didn’t instantly perceive back.