Before .cat was available, and given the reluctance of certain Catalan institutions, companies, and people to use .es, .fr, .it domains (depending on the state respectively) for their webpages, alternatives emerged. An example of this is the website for the city of Girona in Catalonia, which uses a .gi domain ("http://www.ajuntament.gi/", the word "ajuntament" meaning both "city council" and "town hall"), even though .gi is the country code for Gibraltar.
To solve this problem, in September 2005 the .cat TLD was approved, intending to serve the needs of the Catalan linguistic and cultural community on the Internet. This community is made up of those who use the Catalan language for their online communications, and/or promote the different aspects of Catalan culture online. The initial registration period went from February 13th, 2006, to April 21st, 2006. The registry was open to everybody starting April 23rd, 2006.[2]
Restrictions
The .cat domain is not territorial, but applies to the whole Catalan-speaking community, whether or not a site is based in the Catalan Countries. In order to be granted a .cat domain, one needs to belong to the Catalan linguistic and cultural community on the Internet. A person, organization or company is considered to belong if they:[2]
already have contents in Catalan published online.
have access to a special code (sometimes called ENS), issued during special promotions or by agreements with certain institutions.
develop activities (in any language) to promote the Catalan culture and language.
are endorsed by 3 people or 1 institution already using a .cat domain name.
