The “top-level accounts” in the Internet era have become a cash cow for small countries?

Have you heard of Tuvalu? Located in the southern Pacific Ocean, it has a population of 11,000 and covers an area of 26 square kilometers, making it the world's second smallest island nation after Nauru. It is also ranked as one of the world's least developed countries by the United Nations.

However, despite its small size, Tuvalu has been making a fortune in recent years by selling internet resources.

What they sell are domain names.

.TV Domain

As is well known, country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) represent specific countries or regions (e.g., .cn for China, .us for the United States, .fr for France, etc.), most of which are abbreviations of the international English names of the regions.

Every country has its own ccTLD, and owning the rights to it (which can also be transferred and licensed) is significant. Tuvalu is no exception, with its ccTLD being .tv (short for Tuvalu).

Back in 1995, when Tuvalu was assigned the .tv domain, most people didn't even know what the internet was, and the people of Tuvalu were similarly unaware that they had been assigned a valuable asset.

Shortly thereafter, a U.S. company called Idealab saw an opportunity. They noticed that ".tv" was the same as the English abbreviation for "television" and was easy to remember. They made plans to purchase the rights to use this domain suffix from Tuvalu.

For Tuvalu, while the national domain was important, the opportunity to make money was equally important. After all, they had previously used their international dialing code "688" to reroute adult hotline calls and earn some money.

After intense negotiations, Tuvalu agreed to a deal at a price of $5 million per year, transferring the authorization and usage rights of the domain.

While $5 million a year may not be much for larger countries, for Tuvalu, this income is equivalent to about a tenth of their annual GDP.

With this money, Tuvalu immediately built two primary schools and paid membership fees, joining the United Nations in 2000 as its 189th member state.

In recent years, the .tv domain has become increasingly popular. Websites and streaming platforms like panda.tv, twitch.tv, and many others have brought fame to the .tv domain. There are now over 500,000 websites worldwide using .tv domains.

Today, the ownership of .tv domains continues to be managed by the U.S. company Verisign in 2020, with a validity period of 5 years. While there is no specific data on how much profit Verisign makes solely from operating .tv, according to financial reports, Verisign makes billions of dollars annually by providing various domain services.

.Me Domain

The .me domain is widely used for personal websites because "me" means "I" in English. The owner of the .me domain is a small country called Montenegro. The abbreviation "me" stands for "Montenegro." The Montenegrin government saw the business potential of this domain and opened it for global registration in 2008.

For example, the domain registered by "Ele.me" originally came from Montenegro. Later, it was officially transferred to Verisign for operation.

.Io Domain

A similar situation occurred in Mauritius, but their story is related to imperialism and colonialism. The Chagos Archipelago originally belonged to the people of Mauritius, but in 1814, the British took control of these islands and initiated a campaign of ethnic cleansing, forcibly displacing the indigenous population and establishing military bases. The management of the .io domain also fell into the hands of the British.

With the rise of the internet, the .io domain became popular because "io" not only stands for "input/output" but also resembles the binary code of 1 and 0. .io has a strong geeky flavor, making it suitable for the internet industry.

In recent years, Mauritius has attempted to regain control of the .io domain. However, as foreign media have noted, "io is a place you can't physically reach. Unless you serve in the military, the only way the rest of us can access it is through the internet."

Perhaps this is a form of digital colonialism in the modern era, as .io has become an island with internet traffic.

Apart from the countries and regions mentioned above, most other top-level domains are held by their respective nations. In many cases, country code top-level domains are not just simple commodities; in official terms, they are considered internet resources within the scope of national sovereignty. Just as the people of Mauritius desire more than just domain names, they also seek the return of land that rightfully belongs to their nation.