The Future of .io Websites Is Uncertain

The future of the .io top-level domain (ccTLD) seems uncertain as the UK is relinquishing sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. It’s an important step to ending colonialism in Africa, but potentially bad for anyone with a .io website.

The UK and Mauritius have agreed to sign a treaty recognizing Mauritius’ sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago. This will let native Chagossians return to the islands for the first time since their exile in the 1960s. The exception to this is Diego Garcia, which is home to a strategically important UK-US military base. While the treaty focuses on the return of the islands to Mauritius, the impact on the .io ccTLD is yet to be addressed. Currently, the ccTLD is assigned to the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), and a private UK company, Internet Computer Bureau, runs its registry. The registry is now owned by US-based Identity Digital, complicating things and making the registry’s future uncertain.

The .io domain is popular for sites based around technology, due to its connection to “input/output.” Glitch and GitHub Pages both use .io domains for user-created websites and applications, and it’s used for the Itch.io game store. The domain has generated almost $40 million in revenue, which means that likely over a million .io domains are registered. Identity Digital, the current owner of the registry, is unlikely to relinquish control of the financially lucrative .io ccTLD without any kind of argument.

The change in sovereignty could have implications for the .io registry and its registrants. ICANN, the organization responsible for overseeing the operational stability of the internet, bases its ccTLD decisions on the International Standards Organization’s ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 list. If BIOT is removed from the ISO list, as is likely, .io could be removed from the DNS root as well. However, while ICANN has removed ccTLDs before, the process is usually gradual and managed.

It’s possible that .io could be redelegated to Mauritius, especially because of the support of the Mauritian government. However, the UK government has no formal relationship with the .io registry, and ICANN needs the consent of the existing registry for redelegation. Given its importance in the tech industry, it’s also possible that Google, Microsoft, or a group of companies could take over management of the TLD. Google already manages several TLDs, such as .day and .new.

Source: UK Government via Domainincite