On October 3, 2024, the United Kingdom announced communication email list that it was relinquishing sovereignty over its overseas territory of the Chagos Islands, transferring them back to Mauritius. This might be secondary news, something that hasn’t gotten your attention – yet. But in the realm of technology, it’s big news because the .io domain is very popular among tech companies . So why might the change of territory of a tiny Indian Ocean island matter to you? Let’s find out.
As you may have guessed, the “.io” domain is assigned to the British Chagos Islands. When control changes hands, so does the fate of this tld.
The “.io” domain became popular among startups and developers as it is associated with “input/output” in technology. Sites like Github.io and Google I/O helped boost its popularity.
But here’s the catch: “.io” is actually an Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD), meaning it’s tied to the now-defunct British Indian Ocean Territory.
When the transfer is complete, the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) will remove the “IO” country code from its database. The question is whether this will cause the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which manages domain names, to stop issuing new “.io” domains. It is also unclear what will happen to existing “.io” domains.
