Love Scotland? Tell the world with a .scot email address

People of Scottish heritage — or anyone with a love of things Scottish — can profess that publicly by signing up for an email address or web domain that ends in .scot.

Organizations that use .scot range from the Scottish government (gov.scot) and Scottish Parliament (parliament.scot), to businesses and bloggers based in Scotland, to expats and Scotland enthusiasts around the world.

The not-for-profit DotScot registry launched in 2014 and now encompasses 18,000 members. Harry McGrath, the chair and head of engagement and global outreach for the registry, said the domain allows people to easily express their connection to Scotland on the internet.

"The idea was that we would band the Scots at home and people with a Scottish connection abroad, something I've been trying for years in various ways, but this seemed like a modern way to do it," McGrath said in an interview with CBC Cape Breton's Mainstreet.

Scottish connections

McGrath said unlike many other country domains, people do not have to live in, or be from, Scotland to sign up.

"We wanted to keep this as wide and as liberal as possible," said McGrath.

"So we managed to slip the word affinity into the application. And to our relative surprise, it got accepted. So it can be heritage, it can be the fact that you were born in Scotland, it can be the fact that you simply feel some sort of affinity with the place."

McGrath lived in Canada for 25 years and taught for several years in the School for Scottish Studies at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.

He said five million Canadians identify themselves in the national census as having some sort of Scottish connection, and that connection is particularly strong in Nova Scotia.

"We'd love it if the Gaelic world of Nova Scotia would all come over and become DotScots on their websites, and their communications and so on, that would be wonderful."

'It would be great'

People can also sign up for a free DotScot email address.

Canadians typically choose one that ends in @canadian.scot or @blether.scot. Blether is a Scottish word for "chatting or chatty," said McGrath.

The eventual goal is to build an online community, he said.

One possibility, he said, would be to break down subscribers into groups of interest around such things as highland dancing, piping or Gaelic speakers, perhaps through online forums.

"The most wonderful of all would be if we could get people communicating as part of this international family of Scots," said McGrath. "It would be great."