§ Baroness Thorntonasked Her Majesty's Government:
What they are doing to support applications being made for the new Internet Top Level Domains .coop and .union, given that the applications are supported by the International Cooperative Alliance, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the British Internet industry. [HL4614]
§ The Minister for Science, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Sainsbury of Turville)The UK Government have not supported any individual application for a new Internet top level domain. Instead the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)'s Government Advisory Committee (of which the UK is a member) issued an Opinion on 16 November 2000 that set out a number of guiding principles which ICANN should take into account when selecting new internet top level domains. These principles included transparency, openness, linguistic diversity, stability of the Internet and competition with the existing top-level domains.