On February 10, 2009, ICANN released a report on its website titled "Governments and Country Code Managers' Interest in the Fast Track Process". At first glance, this report didn't appear all that interesting until I came across row 16 within the first table titled "Responses from National Government:". The National Government covered in row 16 is LAO P.D.R., e.g. Country of Laos. What row 16 indicates is the LAO P.D.R.'s reponse to a form titled "Questions for Each Territory" which indicates the LAO P.D.R.'s desire to apply under the IDN/FastTrack process to receive the IDNccTLD ".ລາວ" which is Laotian for ".laos". To make matters more interesting, the LAO P.D.R. has indicated that it would be ready to participate under the IDN/FastTrack process by mid-2010.

By now, you are probably thinking to yourself, "Okay, I understand what you are saying, but, how can this impact DOT-LA?" Very simple. Once the LAO P.D.R. has its own domain extension in Laotian, does it really need to continue owning its existing ccTLD, e.g. DOT-LA? The answer is a simple no. Why would it need to continue owning DOT-LA while operating a domain extension in Laotian? It doesn't need to. At the present time, DOT-LA is being marketed as a DOT-CITY domain for the City of Los Angeles via a long-term licensing agreement by LA Names Corporation from the LAO P.D.R. However, one of the problems with such an agreement is a lack of affiliation between DOT-LA and the City of Los Angeles. One way to strengthen that affiliation is for the LAO P.D.R. to acquire its domain extension in Laotian and then allow either LA Names Corporation or another entity to purchase the ownership of DOT-LA for the continued use of this domain extension in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area. The sale of DOT-LA to LA Names Corporation or another entity could be used to finance the creation of the domain extension in Laotian. In essence, this scenario would represent the conversion of DOT-LA from a Country Code TLD to a City Code TLD. Also, such a scenario would represent a win-win opportunity for the LAO P.D.R., LA Names Corporation, and the residents/businesses of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area. Perhaps this strategy is already underway, but, hasn't been made public.

The implications of this scenario go beyond DOT-LA. In essence, this scenario represents an opportunity for other countries to use the IDN/FastTrack process to acquire their own domain extensions in their own languages and, in turn, to sell their existing ccTLDs to others that can make better use of the ccTLDs. In fact, the sale of the existing ccTLDs could even be used to finance the creation of the new domain extensions under the IDN/FastTrack process.