Since 1999 British company “Web site Brokers Ltd.” owns “republicofmacedonia.com” domain name and it is ready to rent or sell the domain with our constitutional name. Vreme tried to find out the price but the company did not answer. At the official web site of the company that that deals with web design and domain registration is stated that the internet domains the company owns are not for sale. However, on www.websitebrokers.co.uk owners said that they are ready to sell or rent the domain if it refers to generic or geographic name of a country.

The British company owns this domain by February 2006 when the registration period expires.

Vreme announced that more than ten years the Greek non-profit organisation “PanEuropean Network” owns Macedonia.com domain. On its web site this organisation presents itself as official web server for Macedonia and offers information about history, sport, tourism, and everyday life in Greece.

If you type Macedonia in a search box, the search engine will return thousands of web sites, most of them Greek, Bulgarian or Albanian propaganda denying our past, culture and language. Yet, not a single institution in Macedonia cares about promotion and protectin of our name on the internet.

Macedonian academic and research network (MARNet) within Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje that manages mk. Domain charges 10 euros for web address registration under mk. domain. Similar is the price for international registration of web address, starting from 15 euros depending on domain extension.

Vreme said that problem with “illegal” registration of a country name is not just problem for our country. Virtual Countries Inc., a private company based in Seattle controls more than 30 Internet domain names named after countries. The New Zealand domain was sold to the government of New Zealand for a reported $1million. Virtual Countries demanded $10million from the government of South Africa when the government tried to recover the domain name southafrica.com. This shows the emerging trend of countries trying hard and paying big sums of money in order to recover the domain names named after their countries because of the national feelings.
 
Mr. Ian Brown, expert on information society

Attract the foreigners, ignore the propaganda

Mr. Ian Brown, expert on information society at the University College London, said that there is no international mechanism that can prevent the exploitation of our constitutional name on the internet.

“There is a debate going on in the United Nations about whether countries should have the right to control exploitation of their name on the internet, but this debate is not finished yet. I do not believe that Macedonian government is so powerful to influence ICANN (Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers) officials in order to prevent this exploitation,” said Mr. Brown.

He thinks that the only way to challenge Greek, Bulgarian, and Albanian propaganda is to offer quality web sites with new information about Macedonia on the internet.

“There are countries like New Zealand where the Government paid a lot of money to recover the domain names named after this country. However, I think that you should ignore the internet propaganda about your country and to publish information about Macedonia that will attract foreigners to come to your country,” added Mr. Brown.

Vreme