VATICAN now controls “.catholic” top-level domain

Last June this year, the Vatican was in line to control the new internet address extension “.catholic” and will be deciding who will be allowed to use it. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a nonprofit corporation that coordinates the assignment of Internet domain names and addresses around the world, announced that they are going to start allowing the purchase and registration of “top-level domains” following the announcement of the Vatican’s formal application on June 12 in London.

Top-level domains are the “.com” or “.org.” etc. that we see at the end of every root web address. There are many others currently available e.g. “.net”, “.ph” but ICANN has never allowed anyone to create their own and “own” it. Until recently.
As top-level domain names are being rolled out and up for grabs, the Vatican has scored control of “.catholic”. The Vatican will now control “.catholic” and its equivalent in other languages using Latin letters, as well as the equivalent of the word “Catholic” in the Cyrillic, Arabic and Chinese alphabets. Its request for “.catholic” in Chinese is number one in the ICANN’s list of priority domain names.
Msgr. Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communication, told the Catholic News Service that the Vatican’s application to control the top-level domain “.catholic” “is a recognition of how important the digital space is formal the Church.” He also said that “we are very happy the approval has been achieved, but there is still a lot of work to do before it goes live.” Controlling the top-level domain will be a “way to authenticate the Catholic presence online,”he added. The Vatican plans to allow “institutions and communities that have canonical recognition” to use the extension, “so people online — Catholic and non-Catholic — will know a site is authentically Catholic”.
The Vatican does not plan to allow individual bloggers or private Catholics to use “.catholic”. 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 recognized communities; and Catholic institutions such as universities, schools and hospitals. Controlling the domain name will promote “a more cohesive and organizedpresence” of the church online, “so the recognized structure of the church can be mirrored in the digital space.”
The fee for each application is $185,000 or around PhP 7.9 Million, which Msgr. Tighe said “is a lot of money, but if you think of the money you have to spend to maintain a church structure.” Still, considering the importance of the structure of the Catholic presence on the Internet is, it is a good investment.
Will this be helpful for the Davao Catholic Herald as one of the Catholic news agencies? What would be the impact of the Vatican’s buying of “.catholic” top-level domain? Will this change the Church in Social Communications and Mass Media? Let us know your thoughts. Join our conversation online, on Facebook and Twitter, by using hashtag#DCHeraldLive. Or email desk@davaocatholicherald.com. -(PERRY PAUL LAMANILAO/Contributor)

Sources: Catholic News Service and Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Vatican.