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Galicia a step closer to its own .gal domain

This week New Delhi is hosting a conference of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The PuntoGal Association, which calls for a .gal domain to ensure the presence of Galician culture and language on the Net, will be making its voice heard.

Encouraged by the success of .cat, the first high-profile domain to represent a culture and not a state, PuntoGal is moving a step closer to getting .gal recognized by the domain name authority, ICANN.

Although the conference is unlikely to produce a definitive outcome [program], the leaders of the campaign say they will try and "spread the word and gain support among ICANN members" in order to get the message across that Galician language and culture urgently need their own domain.

One of PuntoGal's strategies is to gain the support of states where there are significant Galician communities, for example in South America. The fact that ".gal can be a link for Galicians all around the world" is a powerful argument.

 

Similar initiatives of recent years
Since Catalan culture got the .cat domain in 2006, other European nations have launched similar campaigns [see below]. There are also examples of websites that use existing domain names of other states, taking advantage of fortuitous combinations of letters. RadioCatalunya.ca, for example, uses the Canadian domain name, while the website for the Izquierda Asturiana (Asturian Left) party is ias.as, which uses the domain assigned to American Samoa.

 

Further information:

 

Similar campaigns: