Gilbert and Ellice Islands their own administration. As a consequence of the Ellice Islands self-determination referendum, 1974, separation occurred in two stages. The Tuvaluan Order 1975 made by the Privy Council, which took effect on 1 October 1975, recognised Tuvalu as a separate British dependency with its own government. The second stage occurred on 1 January 1976 when two separate administrations were created out of the civil service of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony. The British conducted a formal inquiry into Tuvaluan attitudes towards secession, and announced that a referendum was to be held, in which Tuvaluans could choose to remain with the
Top-level domain the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and is in charge of maintaining the DNS root zone. IANA currently distinguishes the following groups of top-level domains: domain (.arpa) Originally, the top-level domain space was organized into three main groups: "Countries", "Categories", and "Multiorganizations". An additional "temporary" group consisted of only the initial DNS domain, arpa, and was intended for transitional purposes toward the stabilization of the domain name system. As of 2015, IANA distinguishes the following groups of top-level domains: Countries are designated in the Domain Name System by their two-letter ISO country code; there are exceptions, however (e.g., .uk). This