Turkish government takes over ccTLD
Turkey’s ccTLD has been transferred into government hands.
ICANN’s board of directors at the weekend formally approved a redelegation request from the country to its IANA division.
The new official ccTLD manager is Bilgi Teknolojileri ve İletişim Kurumu (BTK), which translates as Information and Communication Technologies Authority.
That’s Turkey’s telecommunications regulator, part of the government.
The original manager, since the delegation in 1990, was Middle East Technical University, an Ankara-based university that caters to over 30,000 students.
As is usual with ccTLD redelegations, all the discussions happened behind closed doors. Typically, the losing manager has to agreed to the transfer.
IANA will release a report at some point explaining the process leading up to the handover.
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This decision is really interesting. What does the ODTÜ management say?
And what exactly is the reason for this decision?
In Pakistan the manager is a private company PKNIC. At some point our ageing backward leaders will wake up to this fact and take over administration of our cctld. It’s bound to be a lucrative takeover for the government so it’s only a matter of time.