Global by Design

I realize I’m a bit obsessed with country codes. It’s a sickness, I know. After I created the Country Codes of the World map, I began looking at other platforms for the design. And since I own an iPhone, I couldn’t resist creating a custom wallpaper for it. Here are two ccTLD wallpapers for the [...]

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In January of this year, ICANN announced that four fast-track IDNs had made it through linguistic approval — effectively clearing the way for commercialization. Oddly missing from that list was China’s IDN. One of the reasons ICANN initiated a fast-track process — if not the reason — was China. China began putting pressure on ICANN [...]

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If you want to know the world’s most dangersous ccTLDs, ask an anti-virus software company. McAfee has released its list of most dangerous country codes. Here are the top five: Cameroon (.cm) PR of China (.cn) Samoa (.ws) Philippines (.ph) Former Soviet Union (.su) Why is Camerooon at the top of the list? Because .cm [...]

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Last week I wrote about the coming of IDNs (internationalized domain names). But IDNs aren’t the only new country codes to keep your eyes on. There is also the occasional new Latin-based ccTLD. Like .IC. The Canary Islands is looking to get a country code to raise its visibility. That, and also to bring in [...]

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It’s funny how top-level domain names (TLDs) outlast the countries they represent. In 2007 I wrote about the end of .YU (Yugoslavia), though it didn’t exactly go away back then. Stephane Gelder writes that the TLD for Yugoslavia expires officially in a week, to be replaced by .RS (Serbia). So this is it. Goodbye .YU. [...]

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