Yugoslavia top level domain name quandary

February 27th, 2003
By Ivana Pavlovic

After Yugoslavia's formal name change to Serbia and Montenegro, it is still not clear what will happen with the country's top-level domain name (TLD).

There are many rumours about what the new TLD extension that will replace former .yu will be. However, internet users in the country, are more concerned about the timeline left for them to change all items - from URLs to printed promotional material - that carry the .yu domain.

However, there is a little that anybody in the country can do to either speed up the process or influence it in any way. The change of TLDs depends exclusively on the ICCAN register, which relies on country names and code elements defined by International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The country's official body for standardisation can suggest a solution, but there is no obligation for the ISO to pay attention.

Moreover, as new federal country is limited to an existence of three years, the most probable solution seems to be keeping the old .yu TLD, until the political situation stablises.