dotSCO is delighted that the First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond MSP, has announced that the Scottish Government will be supporting a bid for new top-level internet domain (TLD) for the Scots community of interest online.
The Scottish Government setup a working group to consider a community top-level for the worldwide family of Scots in response to a petition from dotSCO earlier this year. As our previous newsletter highlighted our Policy Director, Davie Hutchison, has been an active member of that working group.
The First Minister has released research from the working group which shows that there is strong support for a new community TLD. 58% of organisations (from the public, private and third sectors) in Scotland support the creation of a Scots community TLD with only 18% being against. A huge 82% of organisations in the Scots Diaspora back the application with just 8% being against.
As was indicate in the last newsletter the final choice of what string or code to apply for was still under consideration, either ‘.sco’ or ‘.scot’ .The research from the working group has shown that some 59% have supported ‘.Scot’ with 14% preferring ‘.sco’. With .scot being the clear preference of the community we will continue our campaign for a new TLD using that code.
The dotSCO campaign team is looking forward to the year ahead and helping to prepare the bid to ICANN for a new Internet domain for the worldwide family of Scots!