An international not-for-profit association has been founded by the operators of geographic TLDs such as .NYC, .LONDON, .BERLIN and .TOKYO in Brussels.
The GeoTLD Group aims to promote geographic TLDs and ensuring that they become essential components of the digital infrastructure, benefiting stakeholders of a location, language or culture. Along with the above mentioned stakeholders, the GeoTLD Group also includes Amsterdam, Cape Town, Paris, Sydney, Vienna and other cities and regions as its initial members.
Sébastien Ducos, Chairman, GeoTLD Group said :
With the new geographic TLDs, we enter into an age where local communities have their own slice of the Internet. The new digital identities have been well accepted by Internet users and are increasingly used by everyone locally – from governments and local companies, to individuals.
With an international association we are now able to connect and promote the interests of our members and engage the different stakeholders locally, nationally and internationally.
GeoTLD Group added that for over 30 years, cities and regions have had to peg their digital identities to their respective countries’ TLDs. Brussels, for instance, communicated online as www.visitbrussels.be, owing its identity to the .BE country extension. Today cities and regions may own their geographic extensions such as .BRUSSELS, .ALSACE, etc. and also cultural communities and languages such as .GAL for Galician. With its own TLD, the city of Brussels is now using .BRUSSELS for its branding, locally and internationally.