[HN Gopher] TLD Graveyard
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       TLD Graveyard
        
       Author : pjf
       Score  : 173 points
       Date   : 2021-02-26 09:40 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (dzdb.caida.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (dzdb.caida.org)
        
       | Raed667 wrote:
       | I remember some people predicting that every big brand would have
       | its own TLD instead of .com
       | 
       | So you'd go to `iphone.apple`, `zero.cocacola` or
       | `order.macdonald` etc..
       | 
       | I guess that didn't workout yet.
        
         | rualca wrote:
         | IIRC Amazon has a few of them.
         | 
         | https://icannwiki.org/Amazon
        
           | ascorbic wrote:
           | The .aws tld is widely used for services on AWS.
        
             | k__ wrote:
             | How does this work?
             | 
             | I didn't know that companies could simply register TLDs.
        
         | dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
         | Apple has a TLD, as does Google and many others. Give it some
         | time.
        
         | nucleardog wrote:
         | I mean, besides all the active ones, a good chunk of that "dead
         | TLD" list is in fact brands that bought their own TLDs. Hell,
         | FCA picked up or has attempted to pick up:                 -
         | .chrysler       - .srt       - .uconnect       - .mopar       -
         | .dodge       - .fiat       - .jeep       - .ram
         | 
         | And probably others. Which is like... half of the trademarks
         | they own. They bought a TLD for the brand of their infotainment
         | systems!
         | 
         | So it does in fact look like that's exactly what was/is
         | happening.
        
         | rzzzt wrote:
         | Canon has one, since 2015-ish:
         | https://global.canon/en/news/2016/20160516.html
        
         | dna_polymerase wrote:
         | I remember stumbling upon an actual .brand domain only once and
         | of all the brands it was the Swiss private bank pictet [0].
         | 
         | [0]: https://www.group.pictet
        
           | Macha wrote:
           | blog.google makes it on this site somewhat often
        
         | bombcar wrote:
         | Many of those exist - but usually they just redirect to the
         | "dot com" - one that doesn't is https://www.home.neustar/
        
       | mrweasel wrote:
       | Some of these would have been create as an internal domain (think
       | Windows Domain Controller domains) but never as a domain for
       | consumers to type in. No one was ever going to type in
       | "tractors.newholland" when newholland.com exists.
       | 
       | The high cost of the custom TLDs really keep them from being
       | useful for internal systems though.
        
         | BrandoElFollito wrote:
         | I do not understand your last sentence.
         | 
         | Internal TLDs are "free" in the sense that they are not
         | registed with IANA.
        
           | mod50ack wrote:
           | The point is that there is no point in paying that kind of
           | money if you're only going to use it internally 99% of the
           | time.
        
             | ocdtrekkie wrote:
             | I believe that was how Google originally stated they
             | planned to use .dev, prior to it being offered publicly for
             | registration.
        
             | heisenbit wrote:
             | The point is the 1% case where a user trying is accessing
             | the "internal" site while using an external DNS under the
             | control of Mr. Blackhat pretending to offer internal
             | services.
        
           | tinus_hn wrote:
           | Also not a smart idea because you're in for a world of
           | trouble if someone decides to register that tld you're using.
        
             | mrweasel wrote:
             | Oh god yes. I worked for a telco that had a ton of service
             | on a domain they no longer owned. In the end that other
             | company was just blocked from our network because we
             | hijacked their DNS internally. I wonder how much that could
             | potentially break with DNSSEC.
        
               | tialaramex wrote:
               | I'd be astonished if it doesn't already mean they have
               | some massive unexpected security holes.
        
             | sefrost wrote:
             | It took me longer than I'd like to admit before I realised
             | why I couldn't access any ".dev" sites.
             | 
             | Luckily I had to edit my hosts file for a new client and
             | eventually realised the problem was because of a project
             | many years ago.
        
           | mrweasel wrote:
           | Sure, but there are advantages to have them available on the
           | internet as well.
           | 
           | What I'm thinking is having a seperate domain, which many
           | companies already have, for corporate services. We have a .dk
           | for our actual service, products and email, but we also use a
           | .net domain for things like AD, Azure integration and a ton
           | of auxilary services.
           | 
           | Having .company rather than .company.net is just a "nice to
           | have" and certainly not worth the $185,000 registration fee.
           | Had it been cheaper I could see many chooce to have their own
           | TLD just to have a more clear border between "infrastructure"
           | and "product". It gives the IT department more control of the
           | domains they wish to allocate without stealing the from the
           | product and marketing teams. I worked for a company where we
           | already used a series of subdomains, for backend stuff, but
           | down the road those same subdomains became more and more
           | relevant to free up for the public parts of our website, and
           | it was a pain to move around.
        
       | alangibson wrote:
       | I still want to know why there is no .bbq TLD.
        
         | vxNsr wrote:
         | Don't let your dreams be dreams.
         | https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2-2008-10-23-en
        
           | alangibson wrote:
           | If it didn't cost 6 figures just to apply, I swear I would.
        
       | teruakohatu wrote:
       | If anyone is wondering about XN--PBT977C and XN--KPU716F, they
       | are .Zhu Bao  (Translated as .Jewelry) and .Shou Biao
       | (Translated as .Watch). I believe the latter means watch as in
       | wristwatch, not watch as in watch a movie.
        
         | st_goliath wrote:
         | > I believe the latter means watch as in wristwatch, not watch
         | as in watch a movie.
         | 
         | Yes. Shou Biao  (shoubiao) means wristwatch, with Shou  (shou)
         | meaning hand and Biao  (biao) referring to a time piece.
         | 
         | The verb watch as in "watching a movie" would be Kan  (kan)as
         | in Kan Dian Ying  (kan dianying).
        
         | secondcoming wrote:
         | The punycode algorithm is bizarre!
        
           | tasuki wrote:
           | Indeed. I recently implemented the decoding part[0] and
           | really didn't feel like implementing the encoding...
           | 
           | [0]: https://github.com/tasuki/elm-punycode
        
             | secondcoming wrote:
             | I have to do the encoder. Luckily the RFC includes the
             | code, but when I look at it I can't help but think that
             | there must have been an easier way to solve this problem...
        
               | bluejekyll wrote:
               | Like utf8... which mDNS supports:
               | https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6762#appendix-F
               | 
               | I'd personally love to see a proposal to drop puny-code
               | and adopt utf8.
        
               | fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
               | UTF-8 is problematic because of lookalike codepoints.
               | (And the current practice of decoding punycode has
               | similar issues: how exactly international domain names
               | should work seems to me like a really hard problem)
        
               | bluejekyll wrote:
               | I see this argument a lot. I understand it, but I don't
               | agree with it.
               | 
               | One issue that I see is that the UIs where this is
               | rendered, render the utf8, ie the look alike code points.
               | So if it's to protect users, then we'd need to present
               | the puny-code and not the rendered native language text.
               | But, why would do this? It would defeat a primary reason
               | for DNS, to bridge humans to networks. So I just don't
               | buy it.
               | 
               | So the look alike issue is still there. So if it's not
               | the users, then who are we protecting from the look-alike
               | characters? It's definitely not a benefit for those of us
               | who've written the code to parse and store DNS names (at
               | least from my personal perspective).
        
               | fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
               | Browsers use heuristics here and display the punycode
               | when it conflicts with a more "likely" domain: e.g. in
               | the cross-script spoofing here:
               | http://unicode.org/L2/L2004/04305-spoofing.html , Safari
               | on macOS displays http://xn--tp-jbc.com as "xn--tp-
               | jbc.com" but http://xn--t-zfa.com as "at.com"
        
               | bluejekyll wrote:
               | Sure, disambiguation is important, but do we need to do
               | that at the serialization level? We increase the parsing
               | and transformation costs in DNS, when it seems like what
               | we really need is clear rules about what unicode values
               | are legal and which are not.
               | 
               | The example of umlaut is really good one though, as the
               | umlaut can be an extra code point, or part of the actual
               | character. I can see why we'd want to be explicit that
               | both are not allowed in DNS...
               | 
               | It still feels like we're solving this issue at the wrong
               | layer, i.e. the protocol layer, as opposed to the
               | application layer. I'm 100% in agreement on needing
               | solutions here, but I think your example illustrates that
               | it's a higher-order issue for applications, and not the
               | protocol.
        
               | otabdeveloper4 wrote:
               | Yeah, I'm half sure it was an elaborate prank on
               | somebody's part.
        
       | axaxs wrote:
       | This is really interesting, thanks!
       | 
       | I was doing registry work at the time the new gtld program was
       | launching, and remember thinking how silly it all was but
       | specifically some of the tlds being sought. Sure enough, I
       | recognize a few of them listed.
        
       | retrofuturism wrote:
       | I don't get it. Did ICANN approve those TLDs and later remove
       | them?
        
         | detaro wrote:
         | Presumably their owners decided that it actually wasn't worth
         | the cost and effort to continue maintaining them, so they got
         | shutdown.
        
           | microtherion wrote:
           | One of the defunct TLDs is .piaget; I suppose needing a TLD
           | was just a developmental stage that they eventually outgrew.
        
             | tomcam wrote:
             | That was very very good
        
           | Ekaros wrote:
           | I wonder if some of them were also move to protect trademark.
           | Will they be reissued at some point in future?
        
       | phgn wrote:
       | In case you are wondering what whacky top-level-domains there are
       | right now (there are over 1000), I'm working on a faster search &
       | categorisation of them at https://domain.garden.
       | 
       | While some extensions are just absurd, I think there is a good
       | branding potential with choosing some of these TLDs (like for
       | crisp.chat, frame.work or magic.link).
        
         | monkeybutton wrote:
         | Neat website, the simplicity is nice.
        
           | phgn wrote:
           | Thank you! That's the main thing I wanted to solve, having a
           | simple site to see available domains and where to best buy
           | them. Glad that's resonating.
        
         | vxNsr wrote:
         | Take a look at https://tld-list.com/ might what you're looking
         | for.
        
           | phgn wrote:
           | Yep that website is useful as well, with more details about
           | each registry. Mine is more focused on finding available
           | extensions for a given name.
        
       | Thorrez wrote:
       | I wonder why .yu (Yugoslavia) isn't there.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.yu
        
         | duskwuff wrote:
         | .yu shut down in 2010. This site looks like it started
         | collecting data in 2011.
        
       | benatkin wrote:
       | .bnl - Buy n Large from WALL*E
       | 
       | https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Buy_n_Large
        
       | dehrmann wrote:
       | ICANN really overplayed its hand with TLDs. It turns out there's
       | obvious massive value in legacy ones like .com, but they acted a
       | bit too slowly with country hack domains like .io, and then
       | massively overdid it with some of the recent expansions.
        
         | CydeWeys wrote:
         | ICANN didn't create any of these new ones; registry operators
         | who applied for them did. It's a crucial distinction. I guess
         | you could argue that ICANN should've limited it somehow, but
         | ICANN picking and choosing the haves and have nots like that
         | would be worse than the current situation, where pretty much
         | anyone who wanted to could get whatever string they wanted
         | (subject to some reasonable restrictions).
        
       | Clewza313 wrote:
       | In case anybody else is wondering what the two ccTLDs on the list
       | are:
       | 
       | - .an was the Netherlands Antilles, now replaced by its
       | constituents .cw, .sx and .bq
       | 
       | - .tp was East Timor, now renamed Timor Leste (.tl)
       | 
       | There are plenty more not listed here though, including .su
       | (Soviet Union) and .yu (Yugoslavia).
        
         | leipert wrote:
         | My favorite TLD that never was used is .dd:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.dd
        
           | NetOpWibby wrote:
           | The owner of `dd/` might let you register an SLD someday.
           | 
           | https://www.namebase.io/domains/dd
        
             | lathiat wrote:
             | Namebase is not part of the "traditional" DNS and names are
             | not available on normal ISP nameservers, so people can't
             | use it unless they switch to using the blockchain
             | "namebase" DNS.
        
               | NetOpWibby wrote:
               | This is very true.
               | 
               | Namebase is a marketplace atop of the Handshake protocol.
               | Puma Browser supports it natively, as well as NextDNS. If
               | you _really_ want your own TLD (or even to have your own
               | name as a TLD), Namebase is the way to go (for now).
               | 
               | Maybe I should've added this information to my initial
               | comment, I seem to have angered some folks.
        
         | eqvinox wrote:
         | .su isn't listed because it's still active.
        
           | ainar-g wrote:
           | For those wondering, the types of domains and sites that
           | still use .su today (according to my personal experience)
           | are:
           | 
           | 1. Sites that were created back then and just stayed (a very
           | low number).
           | 
           | 2. Sites of organisations operating in most of the ex-USSR or
           | CIS countries.
           | 
           | 3. People who are nostalgic or associate themselves more with
           | the Soviet Union than with any of the states that exist in
           | its territory today.
           | 
           | 4. Just-for-fun types of people.
        
             | whizzter wrote:
             | Naturally some Finns seems to have registered kos.su (kossu
             | is Finnish slang for the Koskenkorva vodka), even seems to
             | have functioned as an url-shorterner for a while. :)
        
             | sippeangelo wrote:
             | Fair amount of linux centric domains as well. I wanted to
             | get one, but my parents wouldn't let me send my passport to
             | russia...
        
           | skissane wrote:
           | I don't think .su will ever die.
           | 
           | Come 2091, people will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the
           | fall of the Soviet Union, and .su will still be alive and
           | kicking.
        
             | ex3ndr wrote:
             | No one is going to celebrate this.
        
               | skissane wrote:
               | Commemorate might be the better word.
               | 
               | But I'm sure _somebody somewhere_ is going to be
               | celebrating.
               | 
               | America's hawkish (neo)conservatives continue to
               | celebrate the fall of the Soviet Union. "Presidents
               | Reagan and Bush Sr beat the USSR!" (Maybe that is an
               | oversimplification of the truth, but it sounds good to
               | their ears.) In 2091, there is likely to exist some
               | intellectual successor/descendant to that school of
               | thought, eager to mark that centenary.
               | 
               | What do the Russian Orthodox think? They went from an
               | authoritarian regime which officially opposed the Russian
               | Orthodox Church to a (still rather authoritarian, but
               | arguably somewhat less so) regime which wants to be
               | publicly seen currying favour with it. I'm sure _some_ of
               | them view that as an improvement. If that 's what _some_
               | of them think, why wouldn 't they celebrate in 2091?
               | 
               | What about the countries which gained their independence
               | through the downfall of the Soviet Union? I think many
               | people in many of those countries will be celebrating the
               | centenary of their independence.
        
               | emteycz wrote:
               | The day Soviet tanks left our country in 90s is still
               | celebrated with fireworks. And Velvet Revolution Day is
               | the biggest annual celebration, literally most of the
               | country celebrates, with special events (photos, movies
               | theatre...) everywhere that try to describe how bad it
               | used to be.
        
               | agapon wrote:
               | > But I'm sure somebody somewhere is going to be
               | celebrating.
               | 
               | For sure. https://imgur.com/gallery/L9VNpP4
        
             | hakfoo wrote:
             | I'm surprised it doesn't enjoy some currency as something
             | analogous to .eu for the CIS or former-Soviet countries in
             | general.
             | 
             | There are probably a lot of firms that serve many of these
             | countries, and having a single unified presence at foo.su
             | is probably more efficient than registering foo.ru, foo.ua,
             | foo.kz, foo.lv, etc.
        
               | yoz-y wrote:
               | A lot of people don't see past attachment to Soviet Union
               | as positive. So I doubt this would have much usage except
               | for fun.
        
             | CydeWeys wrote:
             | There are still active domains on it so it can't die unless
             | someone somehow forcefully expropriates those domains from
             | their owners (and seeing as how the Soviet Union no longer
             | exists I think it'd only fall to ICANN to do that). I think
             | it'll just continue living on as a zombie forever.
        
         | pzb wrote:
         | I put together a historical list of TLDs that had been removed
         | in 2017:
         | https://github.com/pzb/TLDs/blob/master/removed/rmtlds.csv . It
         | overlaps with the early part of this list.
         | 
         | .cs was the first removed TLD as far as I was able to find.
        
         | egberts wrote:
         | In Soviet Russia, domain name never dies.
        
           | dane-pgp wrote:
           | I think that should be:
           | 
           | In Soviet Russia, top level authority expires you!
        
           | dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
           | In Soviet Russia, domains name you!
        
             | mkoryak wrote:
             | I am russian, and while I understand why these types of
             | jokes exist, I never understood why they are "jokes". Are
             | they actually funny?
             | 
             | Was the first one funny but then people kept making more
             | which aren't funny?
             | 
             | Why is it a joke to use sentence structure from another
             | language?
             | 
             | Also, OPs post was actually clever, which can't be said of
             | 99% of these things
        
               | dane-pgp wrote:
               | The first ones were definitely funny, and the format was
               | popularized as part of a successful stand-up comedy
               | routine by Yakov Smirnoff, although he wasn't the first
               | to use it.[0]
               | 
               | Because the template can be filled with a wide variety of
               | specific nouns and verbs, it has become a bit of a
               | snowclone[1] or a meme in its own right[2], like the
               | "Xzibit Yo Dawg" meme[3].
               | 
               | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Soviet_Russia
               | 
               | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowclone
               | 
               | [2] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/in-soviet-russia
               | 
               | [3] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/xzibit-yo-dawg
        
               | deathanatos wrote:
               | Someone linked you to the Wikipedia article, and I just
               | want to quote this bit of it:
               | 
               | > _and the inverted Soviet form something menacing or
               | dysfunctional, satirizing life under a communist
               | dictatorship_
               | 
               | A proper use of the "In Soviet Russia" meme isn't just
               | reversing the words to make it sound like "Russian"; it'
               | supposed to also suddenly construct a sentence that
               | implies something dystopian. (And ideally, somewhat
               | humorously, usually contextually so.)
               | 
               | I think the right ones are generally only at "sensible
               | chuckle" level -- you're not going to die laughing
               | usually. I don't think the one above really fits the
               | template though.
        
               | t0astbread wrote:
               | It's one of those things, I think, where the individual
               | jokes aren't meant to be funny but rather the fact that
               | they're all terrible yet people keep telling them is the
               | real joke. Similar to Chuck Norris jokes.
               | 
               | As for the foreign language part, it's probably meant to
               | lean into stereotypes about Russian English speakers to
               | emphasize the "trashiness" of the joke. You could have an
               | ethical discussion about that.
        
               | dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
               | Funny is definitely subjective. I can see how you might
               | not find this funny given your personal sensitivities.
               | Also there may be cultural differences at play or you may
               | have a different view of communist or totalitarian states
               | than people in the West.
               | 
               | This is true not only for jokes but for pretty much every
               | good idea. More often these are just a reference to
               | something that is (was) funny, like movie reference or
               | quote.
               | 
               | I don't know why you think this references language
               | structure (see next point).
               | 
               | OP may have been clever (or not), but in my reply I
               | sought to assert the canonical form where you take 'A
               | <verb> B' and write 'In Soviet Russia B <verb> A'.
        
               | eitland wrote:
               | In case it helps, here's one about Norwegians:
               | 
               | - American guy goes to the dentist and says "do it fast!"
               | 
               | - German guy goes to the dentist and says "do it well!"
               | 
               | - Norwegian guy goes to the dentist and says "does it
               | hurt?"
               | 
               | It is a thing in some cultures. Norwegians poke fun at
               | the Swedes (and ourselves), Englishmen make jokes about
               | the Irish and probably the other way around too.
               | 
               | I hope we can agree that it is OK also in the future. I
               | don't want the world to be too dull.
        
       | ainar-g wrote:
       | Some of those at the end seem to be IDN test TLDs[1], which, if
       | Wikipedia is to be believed, were created in October of 2007.
       | 
       | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDN_Test_TLDs
        
       | walrus01 wrote:
       | if anyone want to know about what sort of companies and persons
       | are involved in the new generic TLD game, take a look at these
       | links. One of the biggest, Donuts LLC, is part of the same group
       | of people who tried to buy .org
       | 
       | http://domainincite.com/26198-breaking-failed-org-buyer-etho...
       | 
       | https://domainnamewire.com/2020/11/19/donuts-is-acquiring-af...
       | 
       | https://domainnamewire.com/2021/01/22/breaking-ethos-capital...
       | 
       | List of gTLDs run by Donuts: https://icannwiki.org/Donuts
       | 
       | Or you can just google "donuts abry acquisition dot org"
       | 
       | Or you can google "Ethos capital .org":
       | https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=ethos+cap...
       | 
       | Or you can google "Fadi chehade ethos capital":
       | https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=fadi+cheh...
       | 
       | In my personal opinion it's nothing but a bunch of rent-seekers,
       | in the classical economics textbook sense of the word.
        
         | m463 wrote:
         | I think "ethos" in the name is funny in respect to, well, lack
         | of respect
        
           | microtherion wrote:
           | The name reminds me of an often quoted line in The Big
           | Lebowski: https://getyarn.io/yarn-
           | clip/1acb0717-c59e-44ed-a094-ca69b53...
        
           | pfortuny wrote:
           | The classical meaning is "character/customs" of a comunity,
           | so it may well be that they were speaking of themselves...
        
         | phgn wrote:
         | Do you not think some of these domain extensions are providing
         | value to people (like incorporating a "cool" domain name into
         | branding like crisp.chat, frame.work or magic.link)? You don't
         | have to use their TLDs.
        
           | walrus01 wrote:
           | What makes a TLD that costs $45 or $75 or $200 a year any
           | better or more valid than one that costs $12 or $15 a year?
           | 
           | Because one private for-profit company holds the sole rights
           | to register things on it, and can charge what they want?
           | 
           | Why should ICANN be giving a license to private rent-seekers
           | the ability to charge more than a fair profitable price for
           | something that exists in a fully-automated software
           | purchase/checkout/zone file entry work flow?
        
           | wizzwizz4 wrote:
           | When did DNS stop being a system for identifying servers, and
           | start being a system for owning words?
        
             | falcor84 wrote:
             | Why would there be a distinction? Names have always been
             | about "owning" an identity. The Brothers Grimms'
             | Rumpelstiltskin would be just one historical example of the
             | power attached to knowing and using a name.
        
             | bluejekyll wrote:
             | I find this question confusing, because it's always been
             | somewhat about brand and word ownership. Like `mit.edu` or
             | `ibm.com`.
             | 
             | DNS is quite literally all about names, it's what the N
             | stands for.
             | 
             | Can you give an example where name ownership was
             | unimportant to folks using DNS?
        
               | wizzwizz4 wrote:
               | MIT and IBM are names they already had. But nobody owned
               | edu. or com. - so why does somebody own space.? Why were
               | we in a position where a private equity firm tried to buy
               | org. for over a billion dollars, and nearly succeeded!?
               | 
               | DNS used to be a text file that people would pass around.
               | Now... _this_. Something has gone terribly, terribly
               | wrong.
        
               | bluejekyll wrote:
               | DNS was designed specifically as a replacement for
               | /etc/hosts. It's in the opening paragraphs of RFC 1034
               | about why a single file wasn't viable anymore.
               | 
               | Even for TLDs I think the problems/issues tends to be
               | more about operations of the TLD, because it's generally
               | a little more work than just a zone under a TLD.
               | 
               | But yes. Changing ownership of a TLD that's operating
               | under existing guidelines for all the domains that use
               | it, is a bad thing. I'll caveat that with, if it can no
               | longer be operated by the group doing so it should change
               | ownership, but the same protections for the zones inside
               | it should be preserved in the sale.
        
             | CydeWeys wrote:
             | From the very first moment of its existence, as in order to
             | uniquely identify a server, the string you assign to it has
             | to be unique. This naturally lent itself to a first-
             | come/first-served allocation string, and thus, the
             | registrant of each string became the sole owner of that
             | string, allowing them and them only to point said string at
             | their server(s). Absent that mechanism of sole control and
             | global uniqueness, DNS doesn't work.
        
             | bombcar wrote:
             | Sometime around pets dot com, back in the late 90s.
        
               | throwaway3699 wrote:
               | Pets.com is a bad example because nobody would name a
               | traditional store "Pets". But a TLD like "Google.com" is
               | _clearly_ representing a brand and not just a particular
               | set of servers.
        
       | young_unixer wrote:
       | I didn't know that companies and institutions could create TLDs
       | with their name, fully dedicated to them.
       | 
       | At this point, why not just accept any string of characters up to
       | a certain lenght as a TLD? We've already lost the advantages of
       | having fewer TLDs, no one can remember what is and isn't a TLD,
       | so we have to assume that _anything_ could be a TLD.
       | 
       | I don't realy agree with the proliferation of so many TLDs, but
       | the damage is already done and the logical step forward is to let
       | anytjing be a TLD.
        
         | tialaramex wrote:
         | > we have to assume that anything could be a TLD
         | 
         | Yes. This has been the correct way to handle it for at least a
         | couple of decades and perhaps arguably more. RFC 2606 reserves
         | a handful of TLDs (such as .example and .invalid) and it would
         | be sane to treat these specially (e.g. this-is.invalid just
         | isn't a valid DNS name) but otherwise the most you could say
         | for sure about any TLD is that you don't know whether it
         | exists.
         | 
         | There's a _lot_ of bad legacy code out there which will do
         | things like reject email addresses with a TLD longer than three
         | characters, don 't do that even if you think .horse was a bad
         | idea.
         | 
         | > At this point, why not just accept any string of characters
         | up to a certain lenght as a TLD?
         | 
         | With the exceptions in RFC 2606 and the practical constraint
         | that some TLDs are "poisoned" by decades of misuse (e.g. .corp)
         | this is the situation today.
         | 
         | However the next question is - who shall operate the registry
         | for each of these TLDs? So that's what the ICANN process is
         | for. It's not a problem for .some-ludicrous-vanity-domain-for-
         | a-corporation as on the one hand, nobody else wanted those
         | names (often even the corporation itself never uses them, it's
         | just burning money) - but it gets trickier for .horse where
         | understandably the people who own a horse's name in .horse
         | don't want to hear about how the company operating it went
         | bankrupt and now they need to pay somebody else or their site
         | stops working.
        
           | rsync wrote:
           | "... even if you think .horse was a bad idea ..."
           | 
           | Which is demonstrably _not_ the case:
           | 
           | http://endless.horse/
        
             | koliber wrote:
             | I really want to get to the bottom of this.
        
             | tialaramex wrote:
             | Well, surely more to the point, http://my.lovely.horse/
             | 
             | (If you can't guess what that leads to, you might benefit
             | from two pieces of context. The European broadcast region
             | has an organisation for its Public Service Broadcasters,
             | Eurovision, which holds an annual Song Contest that is
             | known for quirky up-beat winning songs. There was a Channel
             | 4 comedy show about the lives of Catholic priests living on
             | a small Irish island and in one episode they enter the song
             | contest...)
        
           | labawi wrote:
           | > the practical constraint that some TLDs are "poisoned" by
           | decades of misuse (e.g. .corp)
           | 
           | I would call it poisoned by decades of "misuse". From my POV,
           | squatters rights should apply and ICANN has no business
           | delegating widely used TLDs, even if they are not formally
           | registered (in which case they would be expected to pay
           | $$$$-$$$$$$ / y).
           | 
           | TLDs like .onion, .corp, .lan, and other widely used TLDs
           | (say .bit, .dn42, ...) should not be delegated by ICANN,
           | unless it is to the undisputable current users of the TLD.
           | 
           | There is no way a hobby project could pay $$$$$$ for
           | registration, and if it does become successful, while not
           | using the root nameserver services, I don't see why it should
           | pay for the privilege.
        
             | CydeWeys wrote:
             | > From my POV, squatters rights should apply and ICANN has
             | no business delegating widely used TLDs, even if they are
             | not formally registered (in which case they would be
             | expected to pay $$$$-$$$$$$ / y).
             | 
             | Who's the "they" in this sentence? ICANN delegating the TLD
             | formally is the mechanism by which you pay money to
             | delegate a TLD. Until said TLD is delegated, it's not a
             | real TLD, and does not resolve on the Internet. You can't
             | use it in a meaningful sense until it is a real TLD, and
             | once it is a real TLD, global collision rules apply. The
             | fake use cases and the real use cases are fundamentally
             | incompatible.
        
               | labawi wrote:
               | I think I've had this discussion with you.
               | 
               | "they" are TLDs
               | 
               | I can use tor (.onion), namecoin (.bit), dn42 test net
               | (.dn42) or others. They work and people use them, so not
               | fake, just not registered with ICANN. Most of them work
               | fine along with ICANN DNS. They require alternative forms
               | of DNS resolution, so they don't work with ICANN DNS, but
               | that is actually desirable for many of them.
               | 
               | I can also have .lan addresses on my router, .corp
               | addresses on corporate vpn, or whatever in my hosts file
               | and they work. Hosts file works even better than global
               | DNS, so the domains are definitely real, not fake. Just
               | not global, even when globally used.
        
             | tialaramex wrote:
             | .onion was permanently reserved for Tor (which I imagine is
             | what you'd prefer) in RFC 7686.
             | 
             | It makes no sense to do this for say .corp because in fact
             | the existing "squatter" users just arbitrarily assign
             | whatever names they want, so unlike facebookcorewwwi.onion
             | there is no agreed global meaning of headquarters.corp or
             | hplaserjet.corp - the namespace is just poisoned.
        
               | labawi wrote:
               | On the contrary, .corp is a widespread totally
               | established internal use domain. Just like .dev was.
               | 
               | No, it is not globally resolvable, but it is in the
               | _same_ namespace (no way to add a different namespace
               | while retaining compatibility), is _widely_ used and I
               | don 't see why a dozen or so widely used TLDs need to be
               | auctioned off to Donuts co. or whoever. It's not like we
               | have a shortage of words or even operational gTLDs these
               | days.
               | 
               | I'm not suggesting any TLD with 3 users should be off-
               | limits (though I don't agree with gTLDs altogether) just
               | the really widely established ones. If a
               | project/group/whatever successfully squats a TLD and gets
               | widely established, then it should be protected as well.
               | If nothing else, then by squatting itself.
               | 
               | We do not have another namespace for alternative
               | resolution strategies, so ICANN should not simply rent
               | away all names.
               | 
               | Last time I heard, ICANN was corrupt. As far as I am
               | concerned, they have no more right to assign .corp or
               | whatever, than I have a right to reassign and use it for
               | other purposes on my systems. I am not paying 185000$ for
               | gTLD, nor renting a long domain to use for internal
               | purposes, or with my friends.
        
         | tpetry wrote:
         | The problem with your concept is determing who is responsible
         | for ,,.hackernews"
        
         | cdmckay wrote:
         | They don't do that because they can charge companies $185,000
         | to become a custom TLD and $6,250 a quarter after that.
         | 
         | https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/24460/how-can...
        
           | NetOpWibby wrote:
           | I've been looking for a similar reference to this all week,
           | thanks.
        
         | usrusr wrote:
         | Because all the abuse and conflict we see/saw within
         | conventional TLDs surely becomes easier to handle within a
         | single, centrally administered namespace?
        
       | Havoc wrote:
       | Is there a way to determine how risk a TLD is in this regard?
       | 
       | Keen to use a .land for something but would suck if it
       | disappeared.
        
         | CydeWeys wrote:
         | Launched generic TLDs that actually have customers owning their
         | domains will never disappear. The worst that will happen is
         | that the registry services will be seamlessly transferred to
         | another operator (as a registrant you likely wouldn't even
         | notice because your interactions are with a registrar, not the
         | registry). See ICANN's EBERO process which ensures that even in
         | the case that a registry operator abruptly fails with data
         | loss, the TLD and all domains on it can still be quickly
         | transitioned to another operator:
         | https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/ebero-2013-04-02-en
         | 
         | Tl;dr they've thought about how bad for the Internet it would
         | be if TLDs with many users on them could just fail and
         | disappear, so they've taken steps to prevent that from ever
         | happening. There's a reason almost everything on this list is a
         | brand TLD. Your biggest risk as a consumer isn't that your TLD
         | will disappear, it's that the price will be jacked up on it
         | (though this has been happening on .com and .org too).
        
         | phgn wrote:
         | Almost all of the deactivated top-level-domains are brand names
         | or for countries that no longer exist. I think for global TLDs
         | that investors payed money for there is a low risk of them
         | disappearing.
         | 
         | .land specifically seems to be owned by Donuts Inc, so that
         | will stay [0]
         | 
         | [0] https://icannwiki.org/.land
        
       | koolba wrote:
       | And each of these sent at least $250K to ICANN to open up the TLD
       | right? What a scamola.
        
         | pas wrote:
         | Nobody forced the registrars to do so, no? Plus it was clear
         | what they are getting.
        
       | clxxx wrote:
       | I find it odd that TLD's can be bought and sold in such a manner.
       | I understand those like .edu, .gov, .com, and country denoted
       | TLD's because they seem to denote a purpose behind the ownership
       | and I was under the assumption that ICANN simply maintained them
       | as a non-profit. It looks to be more like a money fueled rat race
       | to swoop up as many names as possible for the purpose of land
       | lording over them. Perhaps it's a limited and cynical take, but
       | is there more to the picture?
       | 
       | I've heard of decentralized protocols like Handshake attempt to
       | decentralize the entire sector of TLD's but they just seem be
       | riddled with early profit seekers buying up all the names, so it
       | seems unlikely the large browsers will incorporate them. Can
       | anyone speak on the TLD space and it's future? What was the
       | incentive of ICANN starting the gTLD's and what are the
       | assumptions behind browsers accepting TLD's?
        
         | tasuki wrote:
         | > I've heard of decentralized protocols like Handshake attempt
         | to decentralize the entire sector of TLD's but they just seem
         | be riddled with early profit seekers buying up all the names,
         | so it seems unlikely the large browsers will incorporate them.
         | 
         | Yes, and any system will be riddled with early profit seekers.
         | With Handshake, there's a lot less profit to seek:
         | 
         | 1. The current TLDs are pre-reserved on Handshake for the
         | current owners.
         | 
         | 2. The number of Handshake TLDs is ~infinite. If it were to
         | catch on, I'd expect a race-to-the-bottom for second level
         | domain prices.
        
         | hakfoo wrote:
         | A TLD that enforced a "one organization, one name" rule might
         | reduce the land-rush mentality.
         | 
         | I recall talking with someone who worked with a trade school,
         | this was probably about 15 years ago, and they were very proud
         | of their .edu domain. It was seen as a bdge that they were a
         | federally-sanctioned college as opposed to just a Learning
         | Annex with delusions of grandeur.
         | 
         | At the time, they could only get the one domain schoolname.edu
         | and couldn't just buy "enrollatschoolname.edu" or
         | "schoolnamegoldenhamsters.edu" for a marketing push. Not sure
         | if that's changed.
        
       | petecooper wrote:
       | Site was very slow for me, so I made a snapshot:
       | 
       | http://web.archive.org/web/20210226094451/https://dzdb.caida...
        
       | waheoo wrote:
       | TLDs,a solution to a problem nobody has.
       | 
       | It's just a programmers solution to a programmers problem.
       | 
       | The only reason .com even matters is because it got ingrained in
       | people's minds early on.
       | 
       | You could drop all TLDs tomorrow and nobody would care.
        
         | CydeWeys wrote:
         | > You could drop all TLDs tomorrow and nobody would care.
         | 
         | Huh? That would cause all domain names to stop working. People
         | would certainly care! Can you expand on what you mean by "drop
         | all TLDs" and how all of the existing Web content and links
         | therein would continue to work if this were done?
        
         | iFreilicht wrote:
         | What was the problem, then? I thought the idea of TLDs
         | initially was to separate domains between countries so they
         | could manage them themselves and create less collisions between
         | local registrars?
        
           | JdeBP wrote:
           | RFC 882 explains it in detail, and contrary to what M. waheoo
           | says it is a problem that many people have. One can find
           | analogues to it in many fields, such as why there isn't a
           | single telephone directory book that covers the entire world.
        
       | skissane wrote:
       | It is missing what is (to the best of my knowledge) the first
       | ever deleted TLD - .nato - deleted in July 1996 -
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.nato
        
       | ksec wrote:
       | .Web is still in dispute 5 years after the auction finished.
       | 
       | When will .exe, .jpg or .png ever also be in TLD?
        
         | CydeWeys wrote:
         | Never. ICANN won't be delegating such common Web filenames as
         | that because there's little upside but massive potential
         | downside. That'd be really confusing too.
        
           | 0x0 wrote:
           | Well there is already a TLD with a well known executable file
           | extension: .com
        
             | CydeWeys wrote:
             | .com was delegated 36 years ago, well before the existence
             | of the World Wide Web. It's a _little_ bit of a different
             | situation.
        
               | breakingcups wrote:
               | You'd also be hard-pressed to find a widely used
               | operating system that still allows .com files to be
               | executed.
        
               | 0x0 wrote:
               | Windows 10 still runs .com files. At least the 32bit
               | builds. I wouldn't be surprised if the 64bit builds would
               | accept at least com-renamed PE .exe files too, despite
               | the lack of NTVDM
        
         | NetOpWibby wrote:
         | The latter are domains on Handshake.
         | 
         | - https://www.namebase.io/domains/jpg
         | 
         | - https://www.namebase.io/domains/png
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | NetOpWibby wrote:
       | Namebase[0] is a marketplace built upon Handshake[1], a
       | decentralized ICANN (simplistic comparison). I checked these dead
       | TLDs against Namebase and a fair number of them are blocked from
       | auction. However, a surprising number of them have already been
       | claimed.
       | 
       | I created auctions for the remainders.
       | 
       | Granted, unless your devices are using a Handshake resolver (or
       | NextDNS[3]), you won't be able to actually use these domains but
       | browser adoption seems (tentatively) likely. Puma Browser[4]
       | (mobile app) supports Handshake so who knows...these dead TLDs
       | may see life again.
       | 
       | --
       | 
       | [0]: https://namebase.io
       | 
       | [1]: https://handshake.org
       | 
       | [2]: https://nextdns.io
       | 
       | [3]: https://www.pumabrowser.com
        
       | OliverJones wrote:
       | A lot of those unused TLDs seem to be brands. The companies
       | behind the brands may have bought some of them to keep squatters
       | at bay.
       | 
       | At any rate, it's a way for brand-owning companies, or squatters
       | hoping to shake down those companies, to help support ICANN
       | financially. TLDs are expensive to register.
        
         | CydeWeys wrote:
         | It's not about keeping squatters away. TLDs do not use a first-
         | come first-served allocation system. ICANN will not delegate an
         | obvious brand name to any entity other than that trademark's
         | owner, and there are mechanisms built in to contest allocations
         | (just look at .amazon as an example).
         | 
         | What's mostly going on here is simply that companies bought
         | something without a plan for using it and then dropped it after
         | a period of time as the expenses continued adding up and they
         | continued doing nothing with the TLD.
        
           | dragonwriter wrote:
           | > ICANN will not delegate an obvious brand name to any entity
           | other than that trademark's owner
           | 
           | Any given potential name can be the subject of multiple
           | (registered, not to mention unregistered) trademarks in
           | different combination of field of business and territorial
           | jurisdiction, so even if you have high trust that ICANN won't
           | issue something that is a trademark somewhere in the world to
           | anyone other than the trademark owner (which you probably
           | shouldn't be, given that it's pretty much impossible), you
           | have very little reason to be sure that (1) your brand isn't
           | also someone else's trademark in some jurisdiction and field
           | of business, and (2) that person won't get a TLD for it.
           | Especially in the early round of newTLDs when it wasn't clear
           | the degree to which the prediction that having your own TLD
           | would be expectation as much as having a second-level domain
           | in the most appropriate TLD had been previously would turn
           | out to be true, preemptively acquiring the TLD even without a
           | clear plan to use it made a lot of sense if the cost of doing
           | so is a small fraction of the value of the brand.
        
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