The .UKR domain: the Ukrainian Internet community has not yet decided
Ukraine, following Russia's lead, wants to open registrations in the .УКР domain zone. A special website has been launched for this purpose.http://dotukr.com— a support website for the national Cyrillic domain. The project's pages contain promotional materials in support of the .УКР domain, but so far the domain hasn't received much support from the country's internet community.The website is called "Let the Native Language Domain Become One!" The project is available in two languages—Russian and Ukrainian. The website's homepage includes an explanation of the .УКР domain, emphasizing that it is not a replacement for the familiar .UA domain, but rather a domain "that expands the diversity of the Internet and creates new opportunities for users."
The website explains the choice of domain (why .УКР, and not .УА, .УК, or something else), while the remaining sections contain news, materials from press conferences, and expert opinions.
On the main page of the site, users are invited to express their opinions on the implementation of the new domain. Although the site's authors do not limit the content of comments, and among the users' opinions there are different judgments - both in support of .УКР and against it, the vote is entitled "My vote in support of the .УКР domain." This means that those 18 pages of user opinions can be represented as all the votes of people who ardently support the implementation of the .УКР domain. No less strange is the "Expert Opinions" section - so far it contains only the opinions of people somehow connected with the domain - first of all, these are the opinions of employees of the Ukrainian Network Information Center (USIC), an organization known for its attempts to gain control over the .UA domain. As a counter-example, we can cite a similar project on the RuNet -Website in support of the .РФ domain.
At the same time, the launch of the sitehttp://dotukr.com/is a positive point - this is an attempt to comply with the requirements of the ICANN organization, which allows the registration of domains in national languages only if the population of the country speaks out in favor of the introduction of such a domain zone.
Authors of the sitehttp://dotukr.comThey do not yet offer their users the opinions of experts working in the domain name market, journalist analysts, or businessmen working online.
While the Russian Internet is faced with a massproblems, related to the implementation of the Russian .РФ domain zone. The launch of the Ukrainian Cyrillic .УКР domain zone should be preceded by studying the experience of its "internet neighbors" and attempting to avoid as many of the mistakes and problems currently faced by Russians as possible.
