A short history of the Catalan campaign to win the .cat Internet domain, with implications for other minority languages

On 15 September 2005 ICANN approved the first top-level Internet domain to be devoted to a particular human language and culture: .cat. This paper describes the history of the Catalan campaign to win the .cat domain against political opposition from the former conservative Spanish government and the reluctance of some decision-makers within ICANN circles. While .cat creates a precedent for greater use on the Internet of 'minority languages', there are significant hurdles for other candidates for language-based top-level domains. The paper discusses the concomitant factors needed to support the greater use of any minority language on the Internet.