Tanzania orders state bodies to switch websites from .com to .tz or face action

The Tanzanian government has issued an ultimatum to state institutions to immediately change their website domain names from .com to .tz to promote the country’s identity.

Deputy Communication Minister Edwin Ngonyani instructed the country’s communication regulatory body on Thursday to implement the order and take action against those who fail to make the switch.

“It is unfortunate that some government ministries, departments, agencies and institutions have not yet registered with this important national identity since the domain was launched in 2009,” he was quoted by local media The Citizen.

Nyongani told participants at an event celebrating the national domain that it is required under the country’s communication laws to switch to .tz which will help foreign investors validate the country’s institutions.

“They help one to know that indeed the particular product that he/she wants to import is indeed Made in Tanzania,” he said.

.tz is a Top Level Country Domain (TLD) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) that oversees its approval process. As of February 2017, there were 1528 top-level domains registered.

The common domain names used are .com, .org, .net which are open for any person or entity to register. However, the country, government, education and institutional domains are restricted to the institutions and purposes they were intended for.