About this episode
Those letters at the end of web addresses can mean big bucks — and, for some small countries, a substantial part of the national budget. Zachary Crockett follows the links. SOURCES: Vince Cate , technical contact for the .ai domain in Anguilla. Kim Davies , Vice President of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority Services and President of Public Technical Identifiers at ICANN. Tianyu Fang , contributing editor at Reboot. RESOURCES: " The Two-Decade Fight for Two Letters on the Internet ," by Jacob Judah ( The New York Times, 2024). " Whose Domain Is It? " by Tianyu Fang ( Reboot, 2023). " How a Tiny Pacific Island Became the Global Capital of Cybercrime ," by Jacob Judah ( MIT Technology Review, 2023). " The Tropical Island With the Hot Domain Name ," by Rachel Metz ( Bloomberg, 2023). " The Never-ending ccTLD Story ," by Peter K. Yu ( SSRN, 2003). Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.