Digital Colonisation in Full Swing? The Business Case for High Value Caribbean Digital Real Estate

As we flow through this 11th month of the pandemic, and more of us around the world come on online, depending on being connected to the internet for fresh ways to live, work, play and stay healthy mentally and physically, this presents an abundance of business opportunity, thanks to industry disruption and fast-paced behavioural change comes an abundance of business opportunities.

Consumer behaviour has changed. Companies have closed. New, responsive, and consumer in-tuned brands are thriving. In case you haven’t recognised it, there is A LOT going on and we’re in another huge wave of wealth creation and wealth redistribution. Just more reason for the Caribbean to be minding their own Digital real estate is more crucial than ever before.

Someone else other than a Jamaican or a Jamaican private or public entity owning jamaica.com and reggae.com is digital colonialism. Owing your own key Digital Real Estate is crucial to wealth building in this Digital Age and lots of Caribbean businesses and people simply must become aware of this fact.
And what is Digital Real Estate? The term digital real estate refers to the domain names, social media handles, or other markers that stake out a space on the Internet as being yours.

How can a private entity be allowed to own and control the domain name extension of a sovereign power, a sovereign nation? That’s tantamount to America owning the .com.jm or .jm extension or Barbados owning that .us extension.

Let me give you an example: 

In the early days of the internet, the people who received internet access first—mainly American and European businesspeople began to seize control of country code domains from governments that were still figuring out their significance.

Even with revised policies, there were loopholes. In 1995, for example,  the .ky extension was delegated to a government employee of the Cayman Islands. It turned out the employee was not communicating with the rest of his country. He and an American business partner began marketing the top-level domain to Kentucky residents (inspiring domains like horsecapitaloftheworld.ky), and taking the profits for themselves. The primary leadership of the Cayman Islands only found out a year later that its top-level extension already had an administrator.”

These questions about ownership and national resources are all the more pressing. If most countries are able to claim their domain names as national resources, then everyone should have the same right.

In doing some additional research, my curiosity led me to check in on some key digital assets again which I believe ought to be in the hands of Jamaica and Jamaicans. I had not checked on them in years. I was hoping things had changed, but not surprised that nothing had. I still can’t believe that the domain names – Jamaica.com, Reggae.com, and Reggaemusic.com are all owned by Americans and Canadians. All of those digital domain names were registered between 1994-1996.

We all know that a domain name is digital real estate, it’s gold and it’s an asset that must be owned by and benefit the right people. I remember in those early domaining days when it was like the wild west, people used to buy domain names cheap, squat on them, and also try to resell the names to the rightful owners for huge profits. That trend cooled when the lawsuits heated up, clearly not enough as key Jamaican Digital real estate is still owned by foreigners who are both squatting and also offering it up for sale in some cases.

Reggae.com is for sale with the pricetag of USD$330,000. It was registered in August 1995. I couldn’t find out who owns it as they have a privacy lock on registration information. The only thing I could find was that the address was Seven Mile Beach, Grand Cayman. The question is, why is this person/entity allowed to cybersquat on a premium piece of Digital real estate that belongs to Jamaica and Jamaicans?

ReggaeMusic.com is available for sale for US$20,000 and the registered owner is Fiorentino Holdings, a Government Relations and Business Development based in California. It was registered in November 1996.

Jamaica.com has Col.com Corporation, a Canadian based company as the registered owner. The Administrative and Technical contact is Sally Haxthow. It was registered in October 1994. How has this organization and this person been allowed to have this domain for 26 years, when it is supposed to be the Government of Jamaica or an assigned government-sanctioned agency that owns this?!!

During a time ripe with business activity and opportunities, where industries are being remade, competition lines being redrawn and we’re witnessing a massive digital land grab in progress – Caribbean entrepreneurs and Caribbean governments simply do take their Digital Real Estate seriously! Or when this time passes, we simply would have swamped one plantation for another. Digital Colonialism is real. We must own our digital future!

Further reading

What’s the process of buying your .jm and why is it like that?

Read about how Haiti’s domain was restored to them. 

The business case for a country owning its digital real estate.

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