South Sudan: a new state without its domain

If you suddenly did not hear this news: July 9, 2011 a new state appeared in the world.

Back in February, the south of Sudan overwhelmingly voted for independence from Sudan. The split of Africa’s largest country into two parts was supported by 99% of those who voted.
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Obtaining sovereignty by the Republic of South Sudan raised a number of practical issues. Just think - an independent state should have its own currency, postage stamps, passports, diplomatic relations.

And, of course, the domain name. Any country in the 21st century needs its own national top-level domain. ".Sd" already belongs to Sudan, so the Republic of South Sudan needs to come up with another.

In fact, countries choose two letters from their name. But there are not many domains, starting with the letter “s”. For example, “.su” belongs to the Soviet Union, although it no longer exists. ".Ss" remains the most appropriate and still free.

It is this domain that South Sudan would like to receive, but the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is unlikely to single it out. The reason is that “.ss” has extremely negative connotations. As stated by local official Stephen Luga:

We want to get a domain name ".ss" - "South Sudan", but we are told that "SS" in Europe is associated with the Nazis. But we still filed an application.

South Sudan will be in a somewhat difficult situation if it is denied “.ss”. Even if you think longer and come to the ".rs" - "Republic of South Sudan", then this domain is already occupied by Serbia. And ".sn" belongs to Senegal. In fact, all possible options are already taken.

The official languages ​​of Sudan are Arabic and English, so right now, it might be appropriate to refer to the trend of non-Latin domains and choose some domain in Arabic.

But usually non-Latin domains are redirects to Latin. Since the lingua franca on the Internet is English, it is difficult to imagine a website without a Latin domain. South Sudan is facing a challenge.

[ via TNW Africa]