Don't buy .TV domains. The island of Tuvalu is sinking.

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12 points·jmtame··10 comments

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So what? The Soviet Union has been gone since 1991 and it's still possible to buy a .su domain name.

In Soviet Russia, .su buy you.

There's an Island of Tuvalu? Why do I get the feeling that top level domains are their chief export?

From http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2005/12/tuvalu_that_... :

"If you strong, you get fish," a weathered fisherman tells her. "If you not strong, oh, you gonna die."

Something tells me that fisherman is missing out on all the domain name action.

Tokelau Island and Chirstmas Island are huge too; they gave us .tk and .cx respectively.

Actually, never mind, Christmas Island might have ruined Christmas for me :-(

The great purpose of Tokelau Island is to make sure that if you type "tcl.tk" into your address bar, you will get a web site about Tcl/Tk programming.

I just took a look at Tuvalu on Google Earth and according to Google Earth, it's already under water (you have to look at it from the 3d perspective).

So what happens to a TLD when its corresponding country is gone? I, personally, have no idea - mostly because this seems to be without precedent.

Whatever happens, it's bound to be interesting and have an impact. Bring on the changes.

Actually countries disappear all the time - they just don't usually sink into the ocean.

For example Czechoslovakia and Zaire have ceased to exist as countries, and correspondingly the .cs and .zr TLDs have been removed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_code_top-level_domain

Technically, the island isn't sinking, but it's so low and flat that rising sea levels could put it underwater.

http://www.tuvaluislands.com/warming.htm

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