Quite a number of people have asked about the .nu suffix on my domain name. It belongs to Niue, a 2100 person island nation, several thousand kilometers north-east of New Zealand. They sell domain names via a commercial company. Niue is in the – presumably unique – position of having had more national domain names expire in the last month than they have citizens.
Sadly, on January 7, Niue was flattened by Cyclone Heta. With the damage to the island’s infrastructure and economy, it appears that Niue may merge with New Zealand.
And so I am now pondering, what happens to domain names when the country to which they were allocated disappears?
Comments
Why'd you get a .nu to begin with?
I wanted to get a domain name with a real word, since I was using the site to promote my home-grown project management tool, Cardboard Schedule.
Cons:
- Everybody says, "dot-what?"
- Registration is expensive compared to .com, (though cheaper than .com.au)
Pros:
- I got a real word in my domain name
- Plenty of room for puns about recycling to make 'Nu' cardboard.
Apparently your domain is safe and sound.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34919.html
Yikes! The Reg says... '"nu" means "now" in Swedish. It also means "naked" in French but the French porn industry has yet to really cotton onto the domain.'
"Cardboard Now!" I like, but "Cardboard Naked" is a little sad.
In The Netherlands (in Dutch) "nu" also means "now". I was wondering where the suffix .nu came from and I ended up here.
Greetings from The Netherlands.
mr Freggel