Oh MY! What's Next for Country Top-Level Domains?

Where is it from?

There are several domain extensions out there whose origins and usage can be surprising. Such as .AI, which is actually Anguilla, a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. The .AI top-level domain recently had a boom, obviously because of the Artificial Intelligence trend.

Being also a country applies for domain extensions such as .ME (Montenegro), .TV (Tuvalu), .CO (Colombia), and others.

In summer, .MY opened the first level of their extension (no longer .COM.MY only), alarming brands and others who care about having all of their domains (including the offered subdomains) protected.

It's most likely .MY was simply following the .AU (Australia) and .UK (United Kingdom) example, which made a similar move. It will be interesting to see if .MY will now get a similar usage as .ME.

Domains where the so-called FQDN (fully qualified domain name, meaning the label plus extension) end up in a full word were quickly registered.
Such as ASTRONO.MY, which even features a website, or JIM.MY, which is for sale.

The risks and changes in ccTLDs

There is a risk with country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs).

Unlike the so-called generic top-level domains (gTLDs), they are managed by countries and not by the oversight of ICANN. If foreign territories get dissolved or new countries are formed, the ccTLD may disappear completely. In past decades, this included:

.YU (Yugoslavia)
.CS (Czechoslovakia), after Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic (.CZ) and Slovakia (.SK)
.AN (Netherlands Antilles) was deleted after the Netherlands Antilles territory split up in 2010. It was replaced by separate ccTLDs for the new entities, including .CW for Curaçao and .SX for Sint Maarten.
.ZR (Zaire) was removed when Zaire changed its name to the Democratic Republic of Congo and then received the new code (.CD).

Recent Developments

The most recent news has that .AI has a new technical operator (now Identity Digital, which manages hundreds of gTLDs as well). And .IO might disappear depending on its fate as Indian Ocean Territory.

Given the economic impact of sales of .IO domains (currently worth around 40 million USD a year), it might be the first country which will choose its name after its top-level domain.