The UK鈥檚 decision to to Mauritius will spark a raft of political, military and social changes. But one overlooked aspect is the impending deletion of millions of website addresses ending in 鈥�.io鈥�.
Most websites have a domain name 鈥� such as newscientist.com 鈥� and the last part is called the top-level domain (TLD). Along with .com, you are probably familiar with .org and .net, but there are over 1500 possible TLDs, of which around 300 are that include .cn (China), .af (Afghanistan) and .io for the British Indian Ocean Territory 鈥� otherwise known as the Chagos Islands.
The problem facing owners of .io domain names is that if Mauritius renames the British Indian Ocean Territory, or subsumes it into its own territory, then it may cease to be recognised as an independent territory, sparking a chain reaction of events that will force website owners to look for another address.
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Exactly what counts as a country can be contentious and complex, but the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and corresponding two-letter codes that are used for a range of purposes including directing post, marking financial transactions and passports. These codes are in turn used by an organisation called the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) to assign country code TLDs.
This means that if somewhere is removed from the ISO list 鈥� as the British Indian Ocean Territory would if it were absorbed by Mauritius 鈥� then IANA would, as per its rules and regulations, scrap the .io TLD. This process takes five years, and can be extended to 10, so there is no immediate panic. But the wheels would be set in motion.
You might think that a group of islands with no permanent population (the only inhabitants are around 3000 UK and US military personnel) doesn鈥檛 have a great need for a web presence, but it turns out that the sale of .io domain names is a lucrative business. The suffix has become popular with technology start-ups 鈥� perhaps due to common use of IO as an acronym for input/output in computer science 鈥� and each registration, administered by a company called Identity Digital, costs $36 per year.
Identity Digital didn鈥檛 respond to 快猫短视频鈥檚 questions about how many .io domain names are currently registered, but put the figure at around 1.6 million (up from less than a million at the start of 2023) 鈥� potentially giving annual revenue of more than $57 million. When asked about the plans for the TLD, an Identity Digital spokesperson said that it will 鈥渃ontinue to support .io鈥檚 responsible and reliable operation for its many users and uses now and in the future鈥�.
at law firm Petillion says commercial interests might drive Identity Digital to lobby Mauritius for an outcome that maintains the status quo, perhaps with Mauritius taking a slice of revenue. Alternatively, he says that there is the chance of intervention by a group called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees IANA and is also responsible for other aspects of the internet鈥檚 operation.
Gwen Carlson at ICANN declined to answer specific questions about the future of .io, but points out that the TLD isn鈥檛 the only factor to consider. 鈥淭he need to modify or retain the 鈥業O鈥� encoding may be informed by needs associated with those other purposes, such as for customs, passports and banking applications.鈥�
ICANN is funded by industry, including Identity Digital. It could be asked to make an exception for .io, even if the British Indian Ocean Territory is renamed. It has certainly fudged the rules in the past. For instance, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia splintered in 1992, but the .yu TLD was in use until 2010. And while the Soviet Union split in 1991, the .su TLD is still in use to this day, with no plans for cancellation. Even .eu has been allowed by ICANN, following a specific board vote on the matter, despite the European Union not being a country.
One thing that seems likely is that ICANN will stay out of any political wrangling itself, says at University College London. 鈥淚CANN works very hard not to be political,鈥� she says. 鈥淒esignating address space to a country 鈥� or taking it away 鈥� does have implications for the geopolitics of cyberspace. It is increasingly seen as a form of validation of the borders on the map and that is partly why ICANN is reluctant to get involved.鈥�
Janssen says that the organisation of the internet, with independent bodies like ICANN and IANA making huge decisions outside of direct government control, is a legacy of the early days of the network, but no one has been able to agree a way to change it. 鈥淚CANN has had its existential crises, and there are quite some voices within the community that are calling for the model to change, for sure,鈥� says Janssen. 鈥淸But] in many ways it should be surprising that the internet works as well as it does.鈥�
