Malaysian domain .my to be sold globally next month

The .my namespace will be opened to international registrants next month under an agreement between the Malaysian Registry Authority and the Cayman Islands Internet Naming Corporation, INCO's chief executive said.

Shayan Rostam said MYNIC would continue to be the registry for .my but INCO would operate outside Malaysia. He said the deal would allow non-Malaysians to register .my domain names for the first time. Currently, some registrars offer local presence services to circumvent these rules.

INCO already operates a range of gTLDs, the first of which it acquired from UNR a couple of years ago, and the addition of .my should allow ccTLDs to benefit a wider range of registrars. Rostam said there will be a new registry-registrar agreement that will be "less restrictive" than the old one.

.my has been around since 1987 and currently manages about 313,000 domain names, with a 50:50 ratio between second-level domains under .my and third-level domains under .com.my. There are also lesser-used spaces, such as .org.my and .net.my.

Rothstein said the third tier of space will remain reserved for Malaysians, but no local connection is required under the second tier. This is similar to how Colombia.co operated when it relaunched in 2010.

TLD is certainly potentially attractive as it is a common English word used in domains, although usually located at the beginning of the name rather than the end. According to my database, "my" is the most commonly registered ccTLD-matching two-letter domain in .brands.