DIVIDING DOMAINS DIFFERENTLY: DOT TK LAUNCHES THE REGISTRY FOR .TK DOMAIN NAMES; REGISTRATION AT THE ISLANDS OF TOKELAU.

IN A WORLD DOMINATED BY COMMERCIAL DOT COM WEBSITES THERE IS A WAY TO ESCAPE AND EXPERIENCE THE JOY AND PEACE OF A GROUP OF ISLANDS IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC WITHOUT LEAVING YOUR CHAIR.

Amsterdam, Netherlands - March 14th, 2002. Dot TK, a US startup company with offices in the United States and the Netherlands announced today the start of a new Country Code Top Level Domain registry: Dot TK. Dot TK presented itself to the members of the ccTLD constituency at the ICANN conference in Accra, Ghana, which ended today. ICANN is the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers, dealing with domain name extensions, such as .COM, .BIZ, .INFO and now also .TK.

The Dot TK registry enables individuals and small businesses to register .TK domain names in two different service profiles, both free and paid. By registering a free .TK domain name the registrant obtains the user rights of their own chosen domain name as long as it is used. With a paid domain name, the registrant licenses the domain name for a certain period of time, where no usage restrictions apply during the registration period.

By giving away Dot TK domain names for free, Tokelau wants to put itself on the world map. Tokelau lies 500 miles from Western Samoa, in the middle of the South Pacific. One hour from the date line, with no airstrip and no harbor, Tokelau consists of three small atolls and obtained the letters TK from the International Standard Organization many years ago. Dot TK is a joint venture between the government of Tokelau, its governmental telecommunications company Teletok, and the privately held company Taloha, Inc. from San Francisco.

People in Tokelau live their lives differently from anyone else in the world. Thats not surprising, considering the next nearby populated island is a 42 hours boat ride away. The spirit of the island is to divide all the goods equally amongst its 1500 inhabitants. Every day the fishermen of the island bring back the fish to the market, where the tuna is not sold, but equally divided. If your family consists of seven members, you will get enough food to feed all of them. This system is called 'Inati, and is what forms the basis of Dot TKs business plan.

We wished two years ago to start an Internet Registry for our extension, where everybody in the world could register domain names" claims Tino Vitale, General Manager of Teletok in Tokelau. Taloha came along and after an extensive discussion about our need to show the rest of the world that there is a peaceful and joyful place on this planet, where fair trade and humanity are very high standards, we came together to a workable business model".

A part of this business model is TRADEMARK.TK, where Dot TK pre-registered 55,000 trademark names from all Fortune 500 companies. These large corporations can claim their Dot TK trademark domain names only by sponsoring projects on the island. The first project is to establish a high bandwidth (512 kbps) Internet connection to one of the atolls, improving the educational system and health care for the entire group of Tokelau.

The goal of Dot TK is to create a user base of individuals and small businesses interested in Tokelau, its customs, its culture, its beauty and the way business is done. Dot TK makes registrations more interesting with free tools such as the Dot TK Traffic-Check, where hits on your own Dot TK website can be measured without the need for a counter, or an email forwarding service for addresses within your Dot TK domain name.

Revenue is derived from registrants seeking more in the use of their domain name: registering the name in their own Domain Name Server. Starting at USD 6.95 per year, Dot TK gives these registrants the full license rights of the domain name, where this name can also be sold to another party, if the name becomes valuable.

How does it work?
Its simple. All registrants are invited to claim their Dot TK domain at the website
http://www.dot.tk

More information
Fact sheets are available on request
·   Tokelau, country overview
·   Taloha, Inc., company overview

Photo packages are also available in full colour on CD-ROM, with 20 large print photos of the island, its nature, people, environment and life. Please contact Hans Bouman at hans@dot.tk for more information.

ICANN information
http://www.icann.org

DOT TK: DIVIDING DOMAINS DIFFERENTLY
Amsterdam -- Netherlands
Hans Bouman
Tel: +31 20 5315725
Fax: +31 20 5315721
Cell: +31 6 50988975