Is Tuvalu Getting Ripped Off Over The .TV Domain?

from the greed-sets-in dept

A few years ago we noted that the island nation of Tuvalu was seeing an unexpected windfall due to the lucky coincidence that their two letter international code was .tv -- a valuable property on the internet. Now, however, many in Tuvalu are noticing that VeriSign (the company that now runs the registry for .tv domains after buying the rights from Idealab a couple years ago) is making a lot more money than they are. So, they're complaining that they're getting ripped off and deserve more money from the .tv domain -- even though they really have absolutely nothing to do with it, other than the luck of the international code draw.
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  • identicon
    dorpus, 6 Jul 2004 @ 11:47am

    Most obese nation in the world

    If it's any coincidence, Tuvalu's population has an obesity rate of 51% for women and 57% for men. The fattest nation in the world is Nauru, with a 100% obesity rate among all 12,809 of its citizens. All they do is eat fried rice and watch Australian TV all day, since the unemployment rate is about 90%. Nauru is probably the ugliest tropical island on earth, since most of the vegetation has been removed to mine for phosphor. You can tour the entire country in about 45 minutes, with its vistas of dirt mounds and tree stumps.




    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2004 @ 5:21pm

      Re: Most obese nation in the world - aka 'hate-spa

      Thanks, dorpus, for that enlightening look at your opinion of Nauru. We don't need ot see it any more, thanks to your completely objective review.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        dorpus, 6 Jul 2004 @ 8:31pm

        Re: Most obese nation in the world - aka 'hate-spa

        Air travel in and out of Nauru have been known to get delayed for a few days at a time, whenever Nauru's royal family members decide to take a trip out of the island.

        Otherwise, Nauru does a thriving business in PO boxes and offshore banking. If you lived there, you might come to believe that God made white people so they descend from the sky.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      aNonMooseCowherd, 6 Jul 2004 @ 10:03pm

      Re: Most obese nation in the world

      most of the vegetation has been removed to mine for phosphor

      Is phosphor edible?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      auMoose Cowherda, 7 Jul 2004 @ 3:49am

      Re: Most obese nation in the world

      dorphus neglected to mention that a large amount of nauru govts money currently comes from the australian govt who have an immigration detention centre on the island. mostly the people detained there are boat people from iran, iraq, vietnam etc. the current "liberal" federal govt has budget $us375 million over four years for about 280 people. when some of the refugees challenged their detention in a local court, the nauru govt actually refused visa for their australian lawyers & press to fly in. nauru is sort of like australia's guantanamo bay, but with less interrogations...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2004 @ 6:35am

        No worries

        Good on 'em Mates ...
        Why the hell should Australia have to put up with illegal immigrants either ?


        Guantanamo bay is a jial cell for killers & I don't give a rat's ass about their " supposed rights " you whiny liberal.

        link to this | view in chronology ]


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