Western Sahara Western Sahara is a territorial dispute, disputed territory in Maghreb, North-western Africa. It has a surface area of . Approximately 30% of the territory () is controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR); the remaining 70% is ...

is a disputed territory, and as such it has no

country code A country code is a short alphanumeric identification code for countries and dependent areas. Its primary use is in data processing and communications. Several identification systems have been developed. The term ''country code'' frequently re ...

top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domain name, domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the DNS root zone, root zone of the nam ...

( ccTLD). .eh is reserved for this purpose, and will be assigned if the Western Sahara conflict results in an agreement between the

Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), also known as the Sahrawi Republic and Western Sahara, is a partially recognized state in the western Maghreb, which claims the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara, but controls only ...

and

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

IANA The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS), media types, and other Internet P ...

has not designated a ccTLD manager for the .eh domain.

History

The letters .eh correspond to "Sáhara Español" (ESH, as Western Sahara was previously called Spanish Sahara) and also match Saguia el-Hamra, one of two provinces in the earlier Spanish Sahara. On August 1, 2007, an international consortium made a bid to IANA to administer the .eh domain on behalf of the

. Morocco, which controls most of Western Sahara, has made competing claims to the domain. On October 16, 2007,

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is a global multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization headquartered in the United States responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several dat ...

decided not to delegate ''.eh'' at all, with the explanation that:

there are currently two applicants for the delegation of the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) .EH (Western Sahara). Both requests meet the technical criteria for managing a top-level domain. In cases like this, IANA has a long-standing policy of requesting that the two contesting applicants work together to find a mutual solution that will serve the needs of the local Internet community in the best possible fashion. ICANN does not see a way to approve the .EH ccTLD delegation to one of the applicants without violating its long-standing policy unless the contesting parties are able to reach an agreement.

The two applicants remain armed belligerents; no such agreement has been reached and the domain remains inactive.

Publicity

On April 1, 2013 the Canadian Internet Registration Authority announced it would be releasing .eh domain names to consumers as part of an

April Fools' Day April Fools' Day or April Fool's Day (rarely called All Fools' Day) is an annual custom on the 1st of April consisting of practical jokes, hoaxes, and pranks. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting "April Fool " at the recipient. ...

joke, the TLD being a play on the interjection " eh", which is stereotypically associated with Canadians and Canada.

References

Country code top-level domains Communications in Western Sahara sv:Toppdomän#E {{Compu-domain-stub