Tuvalu is a Tiny Island Nation of 11,000 People. Licensing of Its .tv Domain Contributes 1/12th To Its Annual Gross National Income (washingtonpost.com)
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The internet's full power remains relatively unknown to many people on the tiny island nation Tuvalu (located halfway between Hawaii and Australia), but its evolution has made Tuvalu's .tv domain one of its most valuable resources. From a report: Thanks to the rise of livestreamed programming and competitive video gaming, Tuvalu earns about 1/12th of its annual gross national income (GNI) from licensing its domain to tech giants like Amazon-owned streaming platform Twitch through the Virginia-based company Verisign. And in 2021, when Tuvalu's contract with Verisign expires, that percentage figures to push significantly higher. [...] Compulsory public education has brought the nation's adult literacy rate up to nearly 99 percent, and the World Bank classifies Tuvalu as an upper-middle-income economy, with its territorial fishing rights accounting for the biggest chunk of its GNI at an estimated $19 million in license fees in 2018. But another sizable portion stems directly from its licensing of its .tv URL suffix, thanks to the recent surge in streaming sites. As sites utilizing .tv grow in prominence, Tuvalu's domain on the web may eventually supersede that of its seas.
Few Tuvaluans are able to access the streaming services powered by .tv. The nation's Internet, though widely accessible, is limited to a satellite connection with reduced streaming capacity. However, with more than 140 million people around the world consuming content via Twitch.tv and other streaming platforms, the monetary benefits have helped Tuvalu in more tangible ways than entertainment. "[.tv] has provided a certain, sure income," said Seve Paeniu, Tuvalu's Minister of Finance. "It enables the government to provide essential services to its people through providing schooling and education for the kids, providing medical services to our people, and also in terms of improving the basic economic infrastructure and service delivery to our communities." To monetize .tv, the government of Tuvalu has negotiated a series of agreements allowing foreign companies to market the top-level domain for commercial use. Under the current deal, signed in 2011, Virginia-based network infrastructure firm Verisign pays Tuvalu around $5 million per year for the right to administer .tv. For a nation whose annual domestic revenues tend to hover around $60 million, this is a substantial benefit.
Few Tuvaluans are able to access the streaming services powered by .tv. The nation's Internet, though widely accessible, is limited to a satellite connection with reduced streaming capacity. However, with more than 140 million people around the world consuming content via Twitch.tv and other streaming platforms, the monetary benefits have helped Tuvalu in more tangible ways than entertainment. "[.tv] has provided a certain, sure income," said Seve Paeniu, Tuvalu's Minister of Finance. "It enables the government to provide essential services to its people through providing schooling and education for the kids, providing medical services to our people, and also in terms of improving the basic economic infrastructure and service delivery to our communities." To monetize .tv, the government of Tuvalu has negotiated a series of agreements allowing foreign companies to market the top-level domain for commercial use. Under the current deal, signed in 2011, Virginia-based network infrastructure firm Verisign pays Tuvalu around $5 million per year for the right to administer .tv. For a nation whose annual domestic revenues tend to hover around $60 million, this is a substantial benefit.
How about Christmas Island? (Score:2)
What kind of money do they make off the .cx domain? And how much does Italy make off .it? The mind boggles.
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How boring.
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I haven't seen anyone use a .cx domain in a goat's age. Even .io is more popular.
And about that satellite internet connection? There's a guy named Musk who they should talk to in the next couple of years, once he gets a ground station in Australia.
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Christmas Island is not an independent nation, its used by Australia as a refugee camp for asians who try to get to Australia.
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It still has its own TLD, and someone is getting that sweet money.
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What kind of money do they make off the .cx domain?
Probably not a lot, given that even *they* don't bother to use their domain.
https://www.christmas.net.au/ [christmas.net.au]
Calling Tuvalu an "independent nation" is a bit of a joke, when more of their money comes from foreign aid and remittances. That their domain name is significant income is just icing on the cake.
Eritrea, (.er)are you reading this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Eritrea, (.er)are you reading this? (Score:2)
Imagine the chaos that will ensue!
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well then (Score:1)
Which, of course, was never the point of top level country domains.
Not that I blame them. But I'm genuinely surprised that no do gooders get up in arms about it. Isn't this "cultural appropriation"?
Don't spread the cancer. (Score:2)
Please don't spread the cancer.
Especially made-up shaming (bullying) terms.
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Not sure about your math, since 90% of the people who left and only now are filtering back got tired of the flood of Anonymous Cowards.
Re: How is this news? (Score:2)
Says a lot (Score:5, Interesting)
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Plus which, Tuvalu may not be above sea level much longer. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_Tuvalu/ [wikipedia.org]
Will it be able to maintain its existence as a nation? It won't go the way of Sealand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand/ [wikipedia.org] , since the U.N. only screws over artificial islands. Perhaps Atlantis and Lemuria should apply for couintry domains as well.
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Not sure how a nation of 11,000 people are going to fix global sea level rise.
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Acidification and hot water is already killing the coral reef that protects the island and provides much of the food supply and creates the fishing grounds that they sell rights to. Stronger storms will erode the island, and even more so without the protection of an intact coral reef.
Sea level is not going to rise at the same rate and to the same height everywhere either, South Florida for example is already seeing issues. The highest point in Tuvalu is only about four and a half meters above sea level, a
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if it is not .COM (Score:1)
Then I immediately become skeptical.
(I'll accept co.uk as well)
You mean .org. (Score:2)
.com is where the profit thieves live.
And where the eternal Septemeber livestock is herded.
Oh well... at least if .org pulls through. *looks at life support machine*
The real head-scratcher is Libya (Score:2)
Meanwhile nobody-ever-uses.us declares bankruptcy. (Score:2)
The officiall TLD NIC of the United States of America with the apt name.
Cash in! (Score:1)
I'm changing the name of my island to "Count Island".
Tuvalu gets very few tourists (Score:5, Interesting)
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Upper-middle-income? (Score:2)
The summary says "the World Bank classifies Tuvalu as an upper-middle-income economy." Google says "Of the nation's inhabitants (not including persons employed outside of Tuvalu), only about 1,500 are formally employed. The average per capita income is only about US$1,000 per year, making Tuvalu one of the poorest nations on earth."
Which is it? Have they been suddenly lifted from poverty to wealth by their domain name?
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You can travel to any country on earth these days, in the tallest tower in the city, nearly everyone is making $30,000 usd, with 100+ making $100,000 usd. They live in the big houses and the income for that one tower, usually administrating foreign interests in the companies running big industry there, make a double-digit percentage of the city's wealth. Everyone else is cooking their food over burning trash and struggles to have access to clean drinking water. There's a reason why the finance district is t
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The World Bank is charged with inflicting debt peonage on every country they can get their claws into, if they classified Tuvalu as "poor" then they wouldn't be able to make high-interest loans to them.
Wait, it's an *island*? (Score:2)
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Cameroon (Score:2)
I talked to a guy visiting Tuvalu on ham radio (Score:2)
Obviously, we didn't actually hold a conversation because it's 6,800 miles away from me and my antenna is wire and pvc pipe strung between trees. But, we made contact and told each other how well we were getting the signal/our location then I looked him up online. The guy lives in Fiji and makes trips to Rotuma. At least sporadically he goes to Tuvalu.
There is ONE ham radio operator who lives locally on the island and he runs an old furuno ship radio he repurposed for amateur radio. People have donated ot
then it's a good thing... (Score:1)
https://phys.org/news/2018-02-... [phys.org]