Force Use of Country Code Domains — Countries Could

India law may require hosted email providers to use .in.

An amendment to information technology laws in India may require hosted email providers to use the .in country code domain name and use local servers. This would make their data subject to Indian law.

Apparently this stems from the Mumbai terrorist attacks, following which the government of India had difficulty getting network information from the terrorists’ Blackberries. If the information is housed outside the country, it is difficult for the government to obtain it.

As a result, people in India using Gmail might be forced to use the email address @gmail.in.

This move highlights a couple issues with country code top level domain names.

First, they could become more popular if countries mandate their usage by service providers.

Second, ccTLD registrants need to understand that their usage of country code domains is highly restrictive. Given the lack of proper controls in arbitration proceedings for .in, I’d be very concerned.