Flanders investigating proper domain name

Does Flanders need his proper domain name ? And if yes, which one: .vla? .fla? .flanders? .vlaanderen?

It is no secret Kris Peeters, Minister President of Flanders, thinks Flanders does need his proper domain name. Deloitte has been asked to make a study of the project.

If Flanders engages in creating a Flanders domain name chances are it will be
a community based domain name, like .cat for Catalonia. .Cat is a TLD (top level domain) that wants to protect and promote Catalan culture. You can only acquire a .cat domain name if you have at least 1 page in the Catalan language on your website.

Another aspect regarding the Flanders domain name is the kind of extension: it will probably be a gTLD (generic top level domain), and not a ccTLD (country code top level domain)(like .be for Belgium for example). What immediately leads to another problem. Flanders doesn't have registrars accredited by ICANN for gTLD's. This means that the Flanders domain name would only be sold by foreign registrars.

People close to the matter expect Flanders to close the study by the end of this year. There is an information session for all companies and people interested in the matter today Monday 15-6-2009 in Brussels, Auditorium Boudewijngebouw, Boudewijnlaan 30, 1000 Brussels.

Program:
15.00: Welcome
15.30 - 16.30: Presentation Bart Lieben (Laga, dotBrand)
16.30 - 17.00: Q&A
Reception

More info:
Bert Corluy
E-mail: bert.corluy@dar.vlaanderen.be
Tel: +32 (0) 2 553 55 86
Mobile: +32 (0) 474 357 951