Global by Design: The Branding of Country Codes: A list of “countryless” ccTLDs

Posted on August 16th, 2009 by John Yunker


A country code top-level-domains (ccTLD) has traditionally been used to signify a country-specific web site or resource, or simply to tell users where a given organization is located. For example, Russia’s leading search engine, Yandex, is hosted at www.yandex.ru and The Holy See hosts its site at www.vatican.va (.va = Vatican City).

Then along came the the marketing of .TV.

This ccTLD, owned by the island nation of Tuvalu, was licensed and packaged as the ultimate domain for any media property. And though the domain hasn’t exactly become as popular as .COM, a precedent had been set — ccTLDs weren’t just for country-specific properties anymore.

Then along came Delicio.us, a company that cleverly embedded the United States ccTLD into its brand name.
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