The internet faces another huge change in 2009:

The Internet is growing at an astonishing pace. For several years it has been clear that many new Internet domain names will be needed soon to complement .com, .org, .uk and so on. ICANN, the body responsible for controlling domain names, has started the process of admitting HUNDREDS OF NEW NAMES. The race is on – Berlin wants .berlin, London wants .london, New York wants .nyc, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Over a thousand organizations have expressed interest in one of the new domain names and some are willing to pay huge sums for money for one.

dotCYM has been campaigning for a top level Internet domain name for the Welsh cultural and linguistic community since 2005. If Wales is successful in bidding for its own domain name, we will have access to:

• Good domain names for Welsh businesses (short, descriptive, and memorable) which will be much cheaper than the thousands of pounds that good .com names now cost

• A home for Welsh culture of every type to demonstrate the richness of our Welsh heritage and the opportunities we have for a better quality of life

• A domain name structure which supports the Welsh language and addresses bilingualism and gives a renewed focus for Welsh literature and Welsh speaking communities

• A significant boost to marketing Welsh businesses with our own portals – hotels.cym and visit.cym will boost tourism and cut advertising costs (at the moment, a search for ‘welsh hotel’ on Google returns 3,460,000 results, but we have less than 5000 hotels and B&Bs – a wide range of non-local resellers are responsible for the extra results, and the extra costs they create are passed on to visitors, making us less competitive)

• Better search results – Google and Yahoo have confirmed that local domains like .cym will score higher in searches including related terms like Wales or Cymru

Our own domain will also result in more Welsh internet spending remaining in Wales – at the moment, Welsh internet users spend most of their money outside Wales, which is a damaging drain our economy cannot afford. Highlighting Welsh businesses will make it easier for people to choose Welsh companies. What’s more, a .cym extension will make it easier to police eCrime in Wales, as well as eCrime which targets Welsh internet users, making Wales a safer place to be online.

Wales CAN be successful in the digital age.