".catholic" will be among the new generation of online domain names and the Vatican wants full control over who can and cannot use it.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a non-profit corporation that co-ordinates the assignment of internet domain names and addresses around the world, announced the Vatican’s formal application today in London.
The corporation is overseeing a huge expansion in the number of internet extensions beyond the standard .com, .org., .edu and .gov. The extensions formally are known as generic top-level domains. The assignment of country-code top-level domains, like the Vatican’s own .va, will not be affected by the change.
Mgr Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, said that the Vatican’s application to control the top-level domain .catholic “is a recognition of how important the digital space is for the Church”.
Controlling the domain “will be a way to authenticate the Catholic presence online”, Mgr Tighe said. The Vatican plans to allow “institutions and communities that have canonical recognition” to use the extension, “so people online – Catholics and non-Catholics – will know a site is authentically Catholic”.
The Vatican does not plan to allow individual bloggers or private Catholics to use “.catholic”, Mgr Tighe said. Use of the domain would be limited to those with a formal canonical recognition: dioceses, parishes and other territorial church jurisdictions; religious orders and other canonically recognised communities; and Catholic institutions such as universities, schools and hospitals.
Full Story: Vatican to control ‘.catholic’ internet domain
Source: Catholic Herald
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