The story of the Slovak national top-level domain

Unfortunately this story is archetypal for a post communist country like Slovakia. The state is essentially captured by mafia-like groups and oligarchs and many public services are irreversibly lost to rogue private companies with ties to politicians.

I suddenly felt the urge to visit <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;astalavista.box.sk" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;astalavista.box.sk</a> again. Next up: zombo.com

I don&#x27;t understand why the government got a judicial decision, from it&#x27;s own legal system, stating that the original company (non-profit) couldn&#x27;t have changed its ICANN records when they changed to be a for-profit company. Have done that back at that time, and everything would be ok.

I&#x27;m gladly surprised on how well the brazilian TLD registrar works in comparison of some private players in other countries like Godaddy, although lacking some features. It is simple, straightforward, just works.<p>It is managed by a non-profit with a very diverse board: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nic.br&#x2F;pagina&#x2F;for-an-increasingly-better-internet-in-brazil&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nic.br&#x2F;pagina&#x2F;for-an-increasingly-better-internet...</a><p>I would enjoy to learn about the history of its creation

This is not limited to Slovakia. Mauritius and South Africa also struggled for years before getting back control of their TLD (but they eventually did). And quite a few African countries have the same problem, it seems.

The story sounds so bizarre that I imagine there might be bit more behind it. Like the fact that it apparently took 5 years from the takeover to the government to even begin negotiations, during which the .com-bubble both grew and burst, so I imagine that the matter of a TLD wouldn&#x27;t have been completely obscure at the time. Also I&#x27;m not sure why the government couldn&#x27;t have just unilaterally taken over the TLD and charged the people behind the takeover with fraud or something?

I&#x27;am from Slovakia and this one of many examples, how greedy guys tooked opportunity after fallen communist regime and state laws didn&#x27;t covered this kind of situation. It&#x27;s big shame this is not resolved yet. But there is initiative to change that and give back national registrator back to public hands. I hope it will happen soon. The only other country that gave it&#x27;s top level domain to private hands is Laos. Their .la is mostly used by biznisses from Los Angeles. But that&#x27;s Laos, not country in EU.

&gt; Also, the domain is still not open to foreigners.<p>Why should it be?