I noticed something interesting this afternoon while reading some world news. The North Korean government oversees the Korea News Service, which is operated by the Korean Central News Agency of DPRK (North Korea). This organization is responsible for the news in that country.
This organization posts its news on the KCNA.co.jp website, where .CO.JP is the Japanese ccTLD. It’s interesting to me that they are operating the state news website on the Japanese ccTLD.
KCNA.co.kr is owned by the KC&A Corporation, and KCNA.com is owned by what appears to be a private individual. It would be interesting to find out why they use the .CO.JP domain name, but I doubt they would give an interview on domain selection.
N Korea’s finance minister made a decision regarding monetary policy that didn’t go so well. They took him out of his office and shot him. I doubt they will grant an interview too…
Korea was part of the Japanese Empire from 1910 until the end of World War II… but the website notes that KCNA was founded on December 5, 1946 – more than a year after the end of the war. Of course this all pre-dates the internet as we know it anyway and as far as I can tell Japan did not retain ownership of any commercial interests in Korea, so this is quite perplexing.
A very odd choice of domain name indeed!
Regarding their southern counterpart – I recently hand registered RepublicOfKorea(.)org, one of the more unusual domains in my portfolio and I’m not sure what I’ll do with it yet!
A couple reasons:
1-Many people who consider themselves North Korean live in Japan, and send funds to the north. They are part of the target audience.
2-I doubt S. Korea will give the north a platform. Meanwhile, Japan allows more freedom of the press than any country in Asia.
3-If the north realized how much money there was in silly cctlds, they would already have their own and be milking it for all it’s worth.
4- They’re insane.
The domain was registered in 1996 probably no one around who could even remember.
Is .co.kr for north or south Korea? Last I was in south korea I recall talking some example pics of things being advertised in .co.kr so I think it is south. If that’s the case I doubt the north wants to or maye even can not register one. I don’t think they are on super great terms with one another.
As a followup, South Korea is attempting to completely block access to North Korea’s .kp
http://www.weeklynames.com/2011/01/south-korea-blocks-access-to-north-koreas-cctld/
In my mind it’s a good move!