A pre-feasibility study into adopting a Breton domain name - .bzh – is currently being undertaken by Breizh. The organisation commissioned to undertake the study, Breton Prospective, flew to Los Angeles for a meeting this month with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), to discuss how the .Bzh domain name would be created and what it would look like.
As discussed in previous news items, the Breizh campaign to gain a distinct domain name, in the same way as Catalunya did with .Cat in 2005, is also being undertaken in Alba, Cymru and Galicia. Both the .Bzh and the .Cym campaigns in Breizh and Cymru respectively are running internet petitions that supporters can sign ( (voir le site) and (voir le site) ), but where as the Breton petition has gained over 15000 signatures, the Welsh petition has only just crossed the 6000 mark.
At a recent meeting on the 28th September in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, several of the campaign groups bidding for linguistic and cultural top level domain names joined forces to discuss future cooperation.
In September, the Celtic League wrote to the .Sco (Scotland) campaign group who were visibly absent from those participating in the Galicia meeting, to ask why they were not attending along with the other Celtic countries.
At the Santiago meeting it was decided that the various groups would work closer together in order to show a more united front. The joint group will also be working with the .Cat group to make their bids for domain names as strong as possible as the deadline to submit applications approaches.
Bretagne Prospective is due to present their findings to the .Bzh Steering Group in December. However, it is likely that before any of the bids are approved, ICANN will make contact with the state Governments to seek advice before agreeing the application. The .Bzh campaign has already informed the French Prime Minister, François Fillon, of the campaign, who has given preliminary support for the project.
(Article prepared for Celtic News by Rhisiart Tal-e-bot)
J B Moffatt Director of Information Celtic League
16/11/07
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