end of new prov. extensions

[msn]

I don't mind what happens either way, but our population is under 40 million, and I don't know what other country codes, with bigger populations, need to have the same kind of provincial/state add-on extensions. Does .us have this? Or .de or .co.uk?

Why not girlguidesmb.ca and girlguideson.ca instead? There are lots of ways around having to use a provincial extension.

Plus, existing ones seem to be grandfathered in, and if you can still apply to CIRA for one, they still have an avenue to continue. I'm sure new organizations that crop up similar to girl guides or charities, operating in different provinces, would get approved.

First of all, if you need to beg CIRA for approval and they may or may not approve something, depending upon how they see things that day, rather than having simple rules like I proposed, then tell me please what they will change next, with no notice.

Perhaps people who own more than ten domains will need to seek special permission to own more domains, or submit to a special exam. If they can get away with this, then keep quiet when the next change happens!

Secondly, Nominet in the UK runs .co.uk along with .org.uk and the like - they divided their tree along the lines of organisation type, which several other countries have done, while physically larger countries relied upon territorial branches. As katherine stated you can already say the U.S. has at least 50 third level domains hanging from the .us tree.

Look around the world: many countries are small, non-diverse or linguistically monolithic, so they do not need state or province divisions.

In Europe many refer to cities more than a specific state, like sedo is 'based in Cologne' without ever even putting the state name in their address - just 'Germany'. Europe has 40 or 50 country ccTLDs plus .eu - so why do we have a problem with Canada having a proper province and territory designation?

[hugegrowth]

To answer your last question, I don't know. CIRA hasn't even officially announced this as far as I know, when they do there should be an explanation. I knew about the .uk options like .co.uk, .org.uk, .me.uk and so on. As for .us I've never seen anything like .wy.us or such, they must not be too popular.

My point is only that Canada's population is so small, I can see life going on withouth the provincial extensions, it won't be a huge hardship for anyone in the future not to have this option.

The biggest problem with provincial extensions to me is the system of having to get approval to reg one, if someone owns the same word in .ca or another provincial extension. Or to reg the .ca if someone owns a provincial extension of that word.

If you want to distinguish your domain by province, why not just add the province name or abreviation to the end of your domain? Like CarPartsOntario.ca or MarysShopBC.ca

[Spex]

- Rejects a Registrar request for a restricted name; a Registrant may still make a request directly to CIRA; CIRA will determine at its discretion whether to grant such a request and would assign a Registrar as the “sponsoring Registrar”

I have nothing to say on the matter because I'm not informed enough on the prov extensions issue and it's history, but I do have a question about the above quoted passage.

If I'm reading this right, if someone makes a request directly to CIRA and, if accepted, CIRA will pick and choose which registrar will handle the registration? I'm no conspiracy theorist, but would this open up a possibility for someone at CIRA getting friendly with certain registrars? Or vice versa?

Also for example, let's say CIRA accepts my request but assign's XYZ Registrar as the "sponsoring registrar" but I have issues with said registrar. Can that be changed?

[urlurl]

why not just have single provincial extensions

.ca
.on
.QC
etc...

[CanSpace]

Top-level domains are not up to CIRA. ICANN can't go around handing out TLDs within countries based on arbitrary geographic boundaries... there would be tens or hundreds of thousands of them... and many would overlap.

[msn]

To answer your last question, I don't know. CIRA hasn't even officially announced this as far as I know, when they do there should be an explanation. I knew about the .uk options like .co.uk, .org.uk, .me.uk and so on. As for .us I've never seen anything like .wy.us or such, they must not be too popular.

My point is only that Canada's population is so small, I can see life going on withouth the provincial extensions, it won't be a huge hardship for anyone in the future not to have this option.

The biggest problem with provincial extensions to me is the system of having to get approval to reg one, if someone owns the same word in .ca or another provincial extension. Or to reg the .ca if someone owns a provincial extension of that word.

If you want to distinguish your domain by province, why not just add the province name or abreviation to the end of your domain? Like CarPartsOntario.ca or MarysShopBC.ca

A cynic might say CIRA would try to use this to 'open up' a series of top .ca domains that are currently not available due to existing provincial/territorial registrations.

As I posted earlier, CIRA could change the rules to make the system much easier: positive permission is granted if the existing .ca registrant does not register the requested .xx.ca provincial/territorial level within 30 days of that request.

That would generate plenty of business for CIRA.

If Acme Shoes at www.acmeshoes.ca wanted to protect www.acmeshoes.on.ca from a would-be new registrant they would then have 30 days: register it yourself or let them have it.

CIRA would retain the requirement for permission to be explicitly granted for someone seeking a .ca top level when a xx.ca level already exists.

[Banned: theinvestor]

I don't freaking think so msn!!!! Are you crazy?

[msn]

What part is not clear to you?

[Spex]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I just read a mainstream article about the end of the prov. extensions, namely the .qc.ca

Interesting to see that some group in Quebec want to apply for the .quebec CCtld

http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Quebec+Internet/3761521/story.html

It's RIP for Quebec's Internet . qc; New sites will be denied designation
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quebec's reign as a distinct society on the Internet is coming to an end.
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority, the body that registers domain names, says it will no longer issue new third-or fourth-level domain names, such as qc.caor on.ca,used mainly by government bodies to outline origin provinces. Websites that already have provincial designations will be allowed to keep them, but any new site that wishes to register such a domain will be refused.
Jennifer Austin, senior manager of communications and marketing for CIRA said there is little demand for web-sites with provincial designations; such domains take up just 0.65 per cent of all Canadian domains. She explained CIRA recently redesigned its system for registering names and it would have been more costly for CIRA to include infrastructure to allow the domain name extensions.
"It's been on the decrease," Austin said. "It was very popular at one time, but now it's becoming more of an industry best practice to have shorter domain names. The business case really wasn't there for us to do the development for that feature."
Austin explained this is being grandfathered in, so sites that already have the qc.caaddress will be able to keep it. She added that the Quebec government will be able to add new sites to its gouv.qc.caaddress, if a new department or government program is created.
Despite the change, there is a movement afoot to boost Quebec's Web identity, by getting the domain name . quebec recognized by the world body governing Web addresses.
For more than two years, a group called PointQuebec has been lobbying the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, to register . quebec as its own generic Web domain. The address would be written both with and without an accent on the first e.
The Quebec National Assembly voted unanimously to support the cause two years ago, and 18,000 signatures were collected.
"This is so Quebec can take its proper place in the Internet world," said Normand Fortier, president and founder of PointQuebec. "We're 10 million francophones in North America, and we're surrounded by the English Internet. We want a space for the language, culture and the business world of Quebec."
The group will make a bid to the world Internet body next June. It will cost about $500,000 to present the bid, so the group is currently looking for sponsors. Fortier is optimistic the bid will be accepted, and . quebec, or . quebec could become a known address by early 2012.

[Ilze]

It is one thing to raise one half Million dollars ..u.s. dollars at that...it is another thing to start a registry, run it, and get it to be profitable by a small group that prefer dot Quebec to dot Ca.
I do not see it happening.

[msn]

There are ready-made solutions and fully outsourced DNS providers, so they would be able to run it all for about $1.25 million a year, with full staff, or far less if they do it like Germany.

Either way, eminently doable and with 200,000 registrations they would be able to provide domains at around $6 per year, which is 29% less than what CIRA charges.

Separatistes must be happy that CIRA has made this foolish step.