Summary

  • Tuvalu’s 1999 agreement gave a U.S. company exclusive commercial rights to register second-level names under .tv; the records describe a registry and licensing arrangement, not a sale of the country-code root delegation.
  • Government and company records report cash, equity and registry activity, but differ on Tuvalu’s ownership percentage and do not support claims that .tv income alone paid for UN membership.

Two letters carried two kinds of work. In the Domain Name System, .tv was Tuvalu’s country-code top-level domain. In the commercial market, the same letters could be offered as a memorable ending for a customer’s domain name. The history of the deal turns on keeping those functions separate.

IANA’s current root-zone record identifies .tv as a country-code top-level domain and gives 18 March 1996 as its registration date. That record is not a complete history of its managers. A company filing preserved in ICANN’s 2000 archive describes a later business: The .TV Corporation International, based in Pasadena, said it was the exclusive worldwide registry for second-level .tv names under an agreement with Tuvalu’s government.

The filing says Idealab supplied the company’s initial funding in November 1999 and that registrations began in April 2000. It described the government’s agreement as an exclusive, in-perpetuity licence and said Tuvalu received a significant minority interest, a seat on the company’s board and cash payments. These are statements in the company’s account of its business; the underlying government contract is not included in the accessible record.

Tuvalu’s government later supplied its own account to a United Nations conference. Its 2001 country presentation says the agreement was signed in November 1999, with US$1 million payable on signing and quarterly US$1 million payments due from January 2000. It says US$250,000 from each payment was held in escrow for the first five years. The same report lists a February 2000 payment of A$19.3 million and about A$3 million in quarterly receipts through July. Those amounts are reported in different currencies and should not be combined as if they were one payment series.

The two records also use different measures for Tuvalu’s stake. The government presentation refers to a 20 per cent holding in common stock. The company’s September 2000 capital table lists the government at 14.92 per cent of total capitalization. The dates and denominators differ, and the accessible sources do not explain the gap. The figures should remain attributed rather than being averaged into a single percentage.

The company application gives a sense of how it framed the business. It reports more than 100,000 .tv registrations by 25 September 2000 and says over 45 per cent were outside the United States. Those are the applicant’s figures, not an independent audit. They count registrations, not Internet users, video streams or public benefit. The same filing presents marketing and registry operation as linked commercial functions.

On 5 September 2000, the UN General Assembly admitted Tuvalu as its 189th member. The resolution records the admission; it does not say that .tv revenue caused it. Contemporary accounts connected the new domain income with Tuvalu’s public finances and membership fees, but the available records do not establish that this revenue alone made admission possible.

The distinction is consequential. The company’s account concerns the registry and commercial sale of second-level names. IANA’s record concerns the top-level domain in the DNS root. The accessible documents support a commercial agreement over .tv registration and marketing; they do not show that Tuvalu transferred ownership of its country code or surrendered every decision about root-zone delegation. Calling the deal a sale of .tv collapses those separate layers.

Sources and limits

The original licensing contract was not located. The company’s registration figures are self-reported, the stake percentages use different denominators, and the UN resolution does not connect admission to domain revenue. These records do not establish independent registration totals, actual video use, net fiscal value after costs, or how every receipt was spent.