# Clicking On '.tv' Benefits Tuvalu. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 9, 2012, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clicking-on-tv-benefits-tuvalu/621368 "2012-05-09T09:04:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clicking-on-tv-benefits-tuvalu/621368/1 "2012-05-09T09:04:09Z")
Clicking on ‘.tv’ benefits the island of Tuvalu. [Here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvalu#Economy)’s an article on it. It’s ironic that “tv” both stands for Tuvalu (see [country codes](http://ftp.ics.uci.edu/pub/websoft/wwwstat/country-codes.txt)) and is slang for “television” in the USA. So if ever you see a commercial on television that gives you a web address with “.tv”, don’t hesitate to use it:). And you’ll be helping Tuvalu. What do the rest of you think about this? :):)🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clicking-on-tv-benefits-tuvalu/621368/2 "2012-05-09T09:12:49Z")
Companies which register a .tv domain pay a fixed annual fee so they’re not making money for clicks. I suppose if a company doesn’t see many people clicking on a tv domain, they might decide not to renew it the next year but it’s only $25 a year so it’s pretty trivial. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clicking-on-tv-benefits-tuvalu/621368/3 "2012-05-09T09:56:05Z")
I was aware that .tv was connected to Tuvalu, but in the grand scheme of things it’s not a big deal. Italy had a brief surge of interest a while back with its .it domain, including some amusingly crude sites along the lines of “fuck.it”. I can’t imagine .tv sites are a huge monetary boost for the country but at least it’s a reasonably honest and honorable income stream as opposed to some of the stuff places like Nauru have done in the past. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clicking-on-tv-benefits-tuvalu/621368/4 "2012-05-09T10:37:59Z")
Tonga had something good going on in a similar way with its “.to” domain, and there are [a few others](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_code_top-level_domains_with_commercial_licenses) too. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Me](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mr.Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Me)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clicking-on-tv-benefits-tuvalu/621368/5 "2012-05-09T12:25:07Z")
So does that mean I can blame the island of Catalan for nyan.cat? ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clicking-on-tv-benefits-tuvalu/621368/6 "2012-05-09T13:33:33Z")
I fail to see what is ironic about tv standing both for Tuvalu and for television. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clicking-on-tv-benefits-tuvalu/621368/7 "2012-05-09T17:13:46Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > It’s ironic that “tv” both stands for Tuvalu (see [country codes](http://ftp.ics.uci.edu/pub/websoft/wwwstat/country-codes.txt)) and is slang for “television” in the USA. It’s not ironic at all. Tuvalu specifically marketed itself as a host for U.S. television domains as a way to bring money into the country. It’s not an interesting coincidence if they did it on purpose. ---
**Author:** ![FatBaldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clicking-on-tv-benefits-tuvalu/621368/8 "2012-05-09T19:41:19Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Man_With_The_Golden_Gun)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clicking-on-tv-benefits-tuvalu/621368/9 "2012-05-09T21:11:19Z")
Makes me wonder how much money Christmas Island made off their .cx domain. Since however much they made, probably more than half of it came from the unlucky souls tricked into clicking on goatse.cx. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clicking-on-tv-benefits-tuvalu/621368/10 "2012-05-09T23:21:32Z")
> [@Ponch8](#): > > I fail to see what is ironic about tv standing both for Tuvalu and for television. I figured the irony is they don’t have any television broadcasts there. But I don’t know if that’s actually the case. ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2012, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clicking-on-tv-benefits-tuvalu/621368/11 "2012-05-10T00:39:02Z")
As has been said, no traffic for any of these domains goes to the country in question, and the domain costs involved are fixed annual ones. The most recent one I’ve seen is Montenegro’s “.me”