On 3 October 2024, the United Kingdom ceded the Chagos archipelago to the Republic of Mauritius, which had claimed sovereignty over it for decades.
While the Republic of Mauritius has undertaken to guarantee the presence of a British military base (leased to the United States) on the Diego Garcia atoll, the future of the .io ccTLD, which corresponds to the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), is open to question.
Although .io only concerns a very small territory, this ccTLD has met with some success, particularly among start-ups, because of its resemblance to I/O (Input/Output). The .io ccTLD is among the top 50 ccTLDs with the most domain name reservations in 2024, with more than 1,6 million domain names reserved.
The allocation of ccTLDs is based on the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 list. As long as IO remains on the list, there is no reason to fear that the .io ccTLD will simply disappear. From now on, it is the Republic of Mauritius that seems to hold the cards with regard to the IO: will the territory concerned be absorbed by Mauritius or will it retain a distinct territory status that would allow the IO to remain on the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 list?
In the past, some ccTLDs have disappeared – following a transition period – after the territories concerned disappeared from the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 list. Examples include .yu (Yugoslavia), .zr (Zaire), .an (Dutch West Indies) and .tp (Portuguese Timor). On the other hand, the precedent of .su, still active more than 30 years after the demise of the Soviet Union, also comes to mind.
The disappearance of .io would be surprising given the success of this ccTLD, specifically due to the letters .io. The more than 1.6 million domain names reserved in .io should lead the authorities and stakeholders concerned to allow the ccTLD to keep existing in the domain name system.
That being said, it is not unreasonable to anticipate a desire on the part of the Republic of Mauritius to be involved in the governance of .io in the near future.
At this stage, the website of the .io registry remains silent on the subject of the transfer of the Chagos Archipelago. However, the situation may change in the coming months. The treaty in the process of being ratified between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Mauritius could provide some answers about the future of .io.
IP Twins offers its customers the possibility of reserving domain names in all ccTLDs that allow it, including .io.
