[HN Gopher] .ai website registrations are a windfall for tiny An...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       .ai website registrations are a windfall for tiny Anguilla
        
       Author : headalgorithm
       Score  : 125 points
       Date   : 2024-01-30 19:26 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
        
       | dpflan wrote:
       | This is a great article. It's an interesting phenomenon. How did
       | the `.tv` boom work out? Anyone know registration rates for that
       | domain over time? We are in a big wave of AI hype so the
       | registrations are going to be many for now...
       | 
       | """
       | 
       | And it's just part of the general budget--the government can use
       | it however they want. But I've noticed that they've paid down
       | some of their debt, which is pretty unusual. They've eliminated
       | property taxes on residential buildings. So we're doing well, I
       | would say.
       | 
       | """
        
         | madsbuch wrote:
         | A shame they don't manage that inflow of money particularly
         | well. Instead of giving tax cuts they should treat it like
         | Norway treats income from oil and make a sovereign wealth fund
         | - oh well...
        
           | dpflan wrote:
           | Right, "remove taxes because of domain sales!"...not a good
           | long-term strategy
        
             | p4bl0 wrote:
             | Yes, and since it's _property taxes_ it also means that
             | this money is redistributed to people already wealthy
             | enough to own their house or apartment (and most probably
             | those that others rent)...
        
           | gwern wrote:
           | When you're a small incompetent corrupt country, a sovereign
           | wealth fund is the last thing you want. Like dumping gasoline
           | on a fire. Whereas cutting taxes - well, it may not be
           | optimal, but it's harder to corrupt, is transparent and
           | publicly observable, and easy to implement.
        
       | stuartd wrote:
       | My cue to mention http://ai which used to link to the registrar
        
         | judge2020 wrote:
         | http://ai./ still works and links to registrar services
        
           | stuartd wrote:
           | http://ai works on a desktop browser and opens the same page
           | - this is the page it used to open -
           | https://web.archive.org/web/20220316164406/http://ai/
        
         | tomduncalf wrote:
         | How does this work? Are there other domains like this? I've
         | never seen it before!
        
           | steve_rambo wrote:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-
           | level_domain#Dotless_domai...
        
           | rzzzt wrote:
           | I'm fairly certain "www.canon" resolved to Canon's website at
           | some point (where "some point" is the introduction of domain,
           | 2015), and was not just a hypothetical address:
           | 
           | - https://icannwiki.org/.canon
           | 
           | - https://domainnamewire.com/2010/03/17/canon-why-would-you-
           | wa...
        
           | joshmanders wrote:
           | A TLD is just a namespace. Think of it like subdomains such
           | as blog.yoursite.com
           | 
           | com is a top level domain, yoursite.com is a domain, and
           | blog.yoursite.com is a subdomain. All of these can have their
           | own DNS records that resolve to things. Typically they don't
           | unless it redirects to something like nic.tld or something.
        
           | codetrotter wrote:
           | Conceptually as a user there is not much difference between
           | the topmost TLD, a domain within the TLD, and a "subdomain"
           | (really, a "host") within a domain. Nor any other level under
           | it.
           | 
           | The DNS root is .
           | 
           | Under the DNS root are the TLDs; com, net, org, and a
           | bazillion other.
           | 
           | Then under those are domains. More or less. Some countries
           | use for example co.tld instead of tld, and some use both.
           | 
           | Anyways, aside from things like glue records etc that the
           | domain and tld owners have to concern themselves with, my
           | claim is that for a user it is more or less the same.
           | 
           | If I tell you that my website is http://www.example.com/ then
           | in theory you could do the following to resolve it:
           | 
           | - You don't know the IP of www.example.com so you have to
           | find the Name Server for it.
           | 
           | - You don't know the NS of example.com so you decide that you
           | should query the NS of com for it.
           | 
           | - You don't know the NS of com so you decide that you should
           | query the DNS root . for it
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_root_zone
           | 
           | https://root-servers.org/
           | 
           | So let's query a root server                 dig @198.41.0.4
           | com. NS
           | 
           | Command output with response and some tool specific stuff:
           | ; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> @198.41.0.4 com. NS       ; (1 server
           | found)       ;; global options: +cmd       ;; Got answer:
           | ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 16618
           | ;; flags: qr rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 13,
           | ADDITIONAL: 27       ;; WARNING: recursion requested but not
           | available              ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:       ; EDNS:
           | version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096       ;; QUESTION SECTION:
           | ;com.    IN NS              ;; AUTHORITY SECTION:       com.
           | 172800 IN NS e.gtld-servers.net.       com.   172800 IN NS
           | b.gtld-servers.net.       com.   172800 IN NS j.gtld-
           | servers.net.       com.   172800 IN NS m.gtld-servers.net.
           | com.   172800 IN NS i.gtld-servers.net.       com.   172800
           | IN NS f.gtld-servers.net.       com.   172800 IN NS a.gtld-
           | servers.net.       com.   172800 IN NS g.gtld-servers.net.
           | com.   172800 IN NS h.gtld-servers.net.       com.   172800
           | IN NS l.gtld-servers.net.       com.   172800 IN NS k.gtld-
           | servers.net.       com.   172800 IN NS c.gtld-servers.net.
           | com.   172800 IN NS d.gtld-servers.net.              ;;
           | ADDITIONAL SECTION:       e.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A
           | 192.12.94.30       e.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA
           | 2001:502:1ca1::30       b.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A
           | 192.33.14.30       b.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA
           | 2001:503:231d::2:30       j.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A
           | 192.48.79.30       j.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA
           | 2001:502:7094::30       m.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A
           | 192.55.83.30       m.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA
           | 2001:501:b1f9::30       i.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A
           | 192.43.172.30       i.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA
           | 2001:503:39c1::30       f.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A
           | 192.35.51.30       f.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA
           | 2001:503:d414::30       a.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A
           | 192.5.6.30       a.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA
           | 2001:503:a83e::2:30       g.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A
           | 192.42.93.30       g.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA
           | 2001:503:eea3::30       h.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A
           | 192.54.112.30       h.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA
           | 2001:502:8cc::30       l.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A
           | 192.41.162.30       l.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA
           | 2001:500:d937::30       k.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A
           | 192.52.178.30       k.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA
           | 2001:503:d2d::30       c.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A
           | 192.26.92.30       c.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA
           | 2001:503:83eb::30       d.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN A
           | 192.31.80.30       d.gtld-servers.net. 172800 IN AAAA
           | 2001:500:856e::30              ;; Query time: 58 msec
           | ;; SERVER: 198.41.0.4#53(198.41.0.4)       ;; WHEN: Tue Jan
           | 30 22:38:10 CET 2024       ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 828
           | 
           | Ok, and from that we can query one of the NS of com for
           | example.com                 dig @192.12.94.30 example.com NS
           | 
           | Output:                 ; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> @192.12.94.30
           | example.com NS       ; (1 server found)       ;; global
           | options: +cmd       ;; Got answer:       ;; ->>HEADER<<-
           | opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 4260       ;; flags: qr
           | rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 1       ;;
           | WARNING: recursion requested but not available
           | ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:       ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp:
           | 4096       ;; QUESTION SECTION:       ;example.com.   IN NS
           | ;; AUTHORITY SECTION:       example.com.  172800 IN NS
           | a.iana-servers.net.       example.com.  172800 IN NS b.iana-
           | servers.net.              ;; Query time: 54 msec       ;;
           | SERVER: 192.12.94.30#53(192.12.94.30)       ;; WHEN: Tue Jan
           | 30 22:38:49 CET 2024       ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 88
           | 
           | And we can query the NS for example.com to find out the IP
           | address of www.example.com                 dig @a.iana-
           | servers.net. www.example.com A
           | 
           | (You can see I skipped a couple of steps in the interest of
           | brevity here, as I am suddenly querying an NS by its DNS name
           | a.iana-servers.net. directly instead of via an IP address.
           | But if you like you could imagine that we take the same steps
           | to resolve a.iana-servers.net. from the DNS root up.)
           | 
           | And we get the following output:                 ; <<>> DiG
           | 9.10.6 <<>> @a.iana-servers.net. www.example.com A       ; (1
           | server found)       ;; global options: +cmd       ;; Got
           | answer:       ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR,
           | id: 54009       ;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1,
           | AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1       ;; WARNING: recursion
           | requested but not available              ;; OPT
           | PSEUDOSECTION:       ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
           | ;; QUESTION SECTION:       ;www.example.com.  IN A
           | ;; ANSWER SECTION:       www.example.com. 86400 IN A
           | 93.184.216.34              ;; Query time: 114 msec       ;;
           | SERVER: 199.43.135.53#53(199.43.135.53)       ;; WHEN: Tue
           | Jan 30 22:39:10 CET 2024       ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 60
           | 
           | In reality most client devices will not resolve it from the
           | root up. Instead, they will be told about local resolvers
           | when they aquire DHCP lease on their local network, and they
           | will ask those resolvers on the local network to resolve the
           | domain, and they might do it either directly from cached
           | values, or at least skipping a few steps because they already
           | know which NS are in charge of which TLDs.
           | 
           | But what I am getting to is this:
           | 
           | We can ask the root servers for the NS for the TLD.
           | dig @198.41.0.4 ai. NS
           | 
           | which gives us                 ; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>>
           | @198.41.0.4 ai. NS       ; (1 server found)       ;; global
           | options: +cmd       ;; Got answer:       ;; ->>HEADER<<-
           | opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 46879       ;; flags: qr
           | rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 4, ADDITIONAL: 8       ;;
           | WARNING: recursion requested but not available
           | ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:       ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp:
           | 4096       ;; QUESTION SECTION:       ;ai.    IN NS
           | ;; AUTHORITY SECTION:       ai.   172800 IN NS
           | anycastdns1-cz.nic.ai.       ai.   172800 IN NS
           | anycastdns2-cz.nic.ai.       ai.   172800 IN NS pch.whois.ai.
           | ai.   172800 IN NS a.lactld.org.              ;; ADDITIONAL
           | SECTION:       anycastdns1-cz.nic.ai. 172800 IN A
           | 185.28.194.194       anycastdns2-cz.nic.ai. 172800 IN A
           | 185.38.108.108       anycastdns2-cz.nic.ai. 172800 IN AAAA
           | 2a00:fea0:dead::beef       pch.whois.ai.  172800 IN A
           | 204.61.216.123       pch.whois.ai.  172800 IN AAAA
           | 2001:500:14:6123:ad::1       a.lactld.org.  172800 IN A
           | 200.0.68.10       a.lactld.org.  172800 IN AAAA
           | 2801:14:a000::10              ;; Query time: 52 msec       ;;
           | SERVER: 198.41.0.4#53(198.41.0.4)       ;; WHEN: Tue Jan 30
           | 22:49:27 CET 2024       ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 291
           | 
           | And we can ask one of those for an IP address for the ai tld
           | itself.                 dig @204.61.216.123 ai. A
           | 
           | And in the case of the ai tld, the NS for the tld do indeed
           | return an A record for the bare tld                 ; <<>>
           | DiG 9.10.6 <<>> @204.61.216.123 ai. A       ; (1 server
           | found)       ;; global options: +cmd       ;; Got answer:
           | ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 14414
           | ;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0,
           | ADDITIONAL: 1       ;; WARNING: recursion requested but not
           | available              ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:       ; EDNS:
           | version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096       ;; QUESTION SECTION:
           | ;ai.    IN A              ;; ANSWER SECTION:       ai.   3600
           | IN A 209.59.119.34              ;; Query time: 3074 msec
           | ;; SERVER: 204.61.216.123#53(204.61.216.123)       ;; WHEN:
           | Tue Jan 30 22:50:38 CET 2024       ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 47
           | 
           | And there you have it. That's how it works.
        
       | rvnx wrote:
       | Fun to understand that the reliability of your billion dollar
       | business depends on the decisions of people in Anguilla to hire
       | the right people (like the .to domain)
        
       | p4bl0 wrote:
       | > _It's about US $3 million per month. We do the domains for two
       | years, and so all of our money now is new domains. And if we just
       | stay at this level of $3 million per month for new domains, when
       | the renewals kick in a year from now, we'll just jump to $6
       | million per month._
       | 
       | Is it actually reasonable to expect a steady $3M of domain
       | creation over such a long period of time? AI is really trendy
       | right now so a lot of projects are sparkling up, and even more
       | _ideas_ of projects... and people buy domain names for all of
       | these, even those they won 't ever actually start to build.
       | 
       | I would bet many of these domains won't even be renewed, and I
       | would guess that the number of newly created domains won't
       | actually keep up for long.
        
         | yieldcrv wrote:
         | tough to say but lots of trends didn't go away they just died
         | down
         | 
         | .io never went away for tech
         | 
         | you'd think the mobile app development bubble would have popped
         | 10 years ago but it just kept going despite not really
         | delivering value to most people that feel that they need one
         | 
         | 2020's .finance is still popping in the crypto space, notably
         | many, maybe even most of those ideas do make revenue for the
         | creator, in comparison to a random registration on a whim that
         | sits in stasis forever
         | 
         | I can see the same for .ai domains
        
           | whatyesaid wrote:
           | .io is simply the new .net, what you get when you can't get
           | .com but don't want to rename. Although .io and .ai are
           | really expensive so I wouldn't be surprised if something new
           | comes up.
        
       | sarimkhalid wrote:
       | Funny...reminds me of how the Island State of Tuvalu really
       | benefited from the .tv domain.
        
       | stalfosknight wrote:
       | A windfallf.
        
         | 39 wrote:
         | Don't know why you're being flagged, the way this site
         | editorializes, you'd think they'd correct a typo.
        
       | ado__dev wrote:
       | I wish they didn't require a minimum of 2 years for domain
       | registrations.
        
         | gwern wrote:
         | The reason you wish they didn't require a 2-year prepayment is
         | the same reason they probably want to impose that requirement.
        
       | jakub_g wrote:
       | $3M per month, 15k residents, so roughly $200 per resident per
       | month. Not bad.
        
         | giarc wrote:
         | "They've eliminated property taxes on residential buildings."
         | 
         | What a great thing for the country.
        
       | mholt wrote:
       | I've said it before [0-4], I'll say it again -- mind your TLD.
       | They have about as much control and influence over your traffic
       | as a VPN, except even your users are at their mercy. Do not
       | choose a TLD based on trends.
       | 
       | [0]: https://twitter.com/mholt6/status/1686148772831846402 "TLDs
       | are almost as bad as VPNs in terms of the magnitude of trust you
       | need to commit to another entity for your online survival. Always
       | do thorough research before choosing a TLD."
       | 
       | [1]: https://twitter.com/mholt6/status/1613228573015568386 "TLD
       | registries set their own prices. PS: .io is operated by Indian
       | Ocean Territory. Then, "In 2017, a researcher managed to take
       | control of four of the seven authoritative name servers for the
       | .io domain.""
       | 
       | [2]: https://twitter.com/mholt6/status/1688603657716248576 "Every
       | company I consult with, I advise them to choose TLDs like you
       | would email providers, web hosts, VPNs, and ISPs! They carry
       | heavy risks."
       | 
       | [3]: https://twitter.com/mholt6/status/900740252498665472 "(Note
       | the 1500% increase in price for the .hosting TLD.)"
       | 
       | [4]: https://twitter.com/mholt6/status/1598092186024755200 "Many
       | TLDs are unregulated and put your business at risk"
        
         | whalesalad wrote:
         | Basing your entire business on a ccTLD is very risky. All it
         | takes is a coup and boom you're toast.
        
           | Vespasian wrote:
           | It may be a good choice if it is your local ccTLD, your
           | country is fairly stable and your customers are fine with it.
           | 
           | For example .de is the perfect choice if you are a German
           | company servicing primarily the German market.
        
           | londons_explore wrote:
           | Most businesses own their brand name under at least a few
           | TLD's. It's fairly easy to shift customers over from
           | yourbrand.com to yourbrand.org.
           | 
           | And you'd be smart to have your mobile app fall back to a
           | backup domain if your main domain is uncontactable.
        
         | INTPenis wrote:
         | I've been working with domain registrars since 2004, and while
         | I haven't really kept current on the latest trends I do know
         | that our national ccTLD has very good conflict arbitration.
         | 
         | So my suggestion is always to get a TLD where you feel safe
         | that they can help resolve any potential conflicts that might
         | arise.
         | 
         | At least for important networking stuff, your marketing can be
         | on .ai or whatever is buzzing at the moment.
        
         | gary_0 wrote:
         | I would have said to just use dot-org once upon at time, but
         | then this happened: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/how-
         | we-saved-org-2020-...
         | 
         | In the meantime, at least thepiratebay.org is still up... and
         | now that I think of it, it's a good canary for the integrity of
         | dot-org.
        
         | mattwad wrote:
         | we actually used an .ai domain and one night, round 11pm it
         | stopped pointing to us. To add a record, the registrar at AI
         | literally had a spreadsheet which upserts all the records when
         | they upload it, and someone fat-fingered the row with our
         | domain. It took the whole night to get a hold of the one person
         | on that island who could fix it. This was about 5 years ago,
         | maybe they've gotten better.
        
         | margalabargala wrote:
         | You're definitely right, though .ai refers to a British
         | territory and therefore is on the more stable end politically.
         | (though see .io for a counterexample; the TLD was sold off to a
         | private company)
         | 
         | There are plenty of worse choices, like using .la (Laos) for
         | Los Angeles, .dj (Djibouti) for DJ-related sites, or
         | (particularly prevalent on HN) .rs (Serbia) for anything
         | related to the Rust language.
        
         | jonathankoren wrote:
         | I think the most obvious, "This isn't going to work out," was
         | queer.af losing their domain name, because the _Taliban_ doesn
         | 't take kindly to queer folk.
        
         | orenlindsey wrote:
         | I wish TLDs were decentralized so that goofy stuff like this
         | would never happen. It (having companies and entities own and
         | control TLDs) never should have happened in the first place.
        
           | nemothekid wrote:
           | I don't think it's a bad thing that a country has control
           | over it's TLD. Using `.ai` is overloading the proper use case
           | for that TLD.
        
           | digging wrote:
           | Countries _should_ have their own TLDs, but they should be
           | more obvious and /or not available to the public.
        
         | yklcs wrote:
         | What would you consider to be a "safe" TLD? I imagine most
         | ccTLDs are off the table, and even a lot of the gTLDs are
         | shady, so .com/.org/.net?
        
       | whycome wrote:
       | Tuvalu (.tv), Libya (.ly), Anguilla (.ai). Matt of wordpress got
       | ma.tt (Trinidad & Tobago). Some countries (eg, Canada) require
       | some kind of residency. What other TLDs are special?
        
         | jszymborski wrote:
         | .io quite infamously
         | 
         | https://www.thewebmaster.com/archived/io-tld-top-level-domai...
        
           | whycome wrote:
           | I legit didn't realize that .io was a TLD for a
           | country/state.
           | 
           | Also, that article is wild!
           | 
           | In the future, we'll have a coup in some country and it will
           | cause web chaos just from the TLD issue. (I've seen first-
           | hand how some countries handle their ccTLDs...)
        
             | CydeWeys wrote:
             | > I legit didn't realize that .io was a TLD for a
             | country/state.
             | 
             | All two-letter TLDs are. Now that you know the pattern,
             | you'll be able to identify all the other ccTLDs as well.
        
               | dataflow wrote:
               | For some definition of country/state that includes .eu
               | and such...
        
             | progbits wrote:
             | OK I know this sounds kind of shitty but hear me out for
             | the sake of argument.
             | 
             | If there is some political issue and say .ai domains are
             | taken over, what's stopping IANA from just taking over that
             | TLD and moving the zone to some other entity? Most domains
             | there are owned by international business and some IANA
             | members might want to keep them running.
        
         | bonzini wrote:
         | .cc (Cocos Island) was used most famously by Arduino.
         | 
         | .cx (Christmas Island) domains were relatively common some 20
         | years ago, iirc because of some dynamic DNS provider.
         | 
         | And of course .io is the ccTLD for the British Indian Ocean
         | territories
        
           | whycome wrote:
           | I fully suspect .CX to see a resurgence as the short form for
           | "customer experience" is really expanding quickly.
        
             | dcl wrote:
             | How many people would recall goatse every time they saw it
             | though?
        
           | AdamH12113 wrote:
           | .cx was probably most famous for goatse.cx.
           | 
           | (For anyone who doesn't know -- don't go there. At least not
           | while you're in public.)
        
           | z500 wrote:
           | I remember .cc being marketed as "the new .com" 20 years ago
           | or so. Never did see many .cc domains.
        
           | diggan wrote:
           | Lots of shady stuff early 2000s were using .cc as well. Don't
           | remember specifically what niche though.
        
         | pavlov wrote:
         | .co (Colombia) is a fairly popular alternative to .com.
         | 
         | .fi (Finland) was used by crypto/web3 companies during the
         | 2021-22 hype cycle because it associates with finance (as in
         | DeFi = decentralized finance).
         | 
         | .is (Iceland) and .at (Austria) are English words and can be
         | used for cleverish domains that form sentences in URLs, as in:
         | this.is/amazing
        
           | whycome wrote:
           | .gy (Guyana) may have some life (grun.gy, lethar.gy ?)
        
             | pavlov wrote:
             | Domain power combo: big.dk + ener.gy
        
         | matsemann wrote:
         | .tk was all the rage when I was younger, early 2000s something.
         | You got a top level domain for free! Of course, they would just
         | serve your webpage through a frameset with ads surrounding it
         | unless you paid. But it rocked being able to say "visit my
         | webpage matsemann.tk" instead of home.no.net/users/~matsemann/
         | (~ on Norwegian keyboard needs an alt+gr combo plus pressing
         | space to show, and back in the days having to explain the
         | direction of slashes also made it hard)
        
           | bonzini wrote:
           | Except for https://tcl.tk/ of course!
        
           | riedel wrote:
           | OMG this really brings back some memories. I totally forgot
           | about that .tk iframe thing. Wasn't it in the late 90s?
        
             | schroeding wrote:
             | Was still a thing in the late 2000s, at least in my
             | (european) internet bubble at the time.
             | 
             | This was also one of the only ways for a broke middle
             | schooler without a credit card to get a cool "real" domain.
             | 
             | Combine it with dyndns, self-host some ancient-but-free
             | bulletin-board software (Woltlab Burning Board may ring a
             | bell for the European / German audience) after learning
             | about this "Apache2" and "mod_php" thing and your small
             | slice of internet with 10 users max is done. Good times. :D
        
               | doublerabbit wrote:
               | Always used phpbb but when I discovered a nulled version
               | of WBB in my script kddie days, heck was it a good time.
        
           | p4bl0 wrote:
           | Yes, but since it has been operated by freenom, along with
           | .ml, .ga, .gk, and .cf it's a _real_ disaster.
        
           | chislobog wrote:
           | There is an audio interview, linked on HN, in one of the
           | comments I can't find, about the crazy story of tk domains
           | involving gun running and drug smuggling, freedom getting
           | sued by Facebook for tk abuse and so on. It was very
           | interesting to hear dotcom bust millionaire stories from a
           | user here.
           | 
           | Have this instead "How a Tiny Pacific Island Became the
           | Global Hub of Cybercrime"
           | 
           | https://m.slashdot.org/story/421307
        
         | p4bl0 wrote:
         | In the same vein as .tv there is the .fm (Federated States of
         | Micronesia) for radio stations.
         | 
         | Also, .ws (Western Samoa), which was sold as "web site".
        
           | bombcar wrote:
           | Seen a decent number of usages of .fm for podcasts.
        
         | deathanatos wrote:
         | .it (Italy) for "IT/Information Technology"
         | 
         | IIRC it sort of has a residency requirement, but there are
         | companies that will proxy your registration for you. More
         | trouble than its worth to just not abuse the TLDs in this
         | manner.
        
         | toast0 wrote:
         | Many registrars offer a service where they provide a local
         | contact who meets the residency requirements of your preferred
         | domain name.
         | 
         | Not something to do lightly for an actively used domain name if
         | you're an actual business, as it may establish presence in a
         | jurisdiction you'd rather not be in; but it should be fine
         | enough for personal use; worst case, you abandon the domain
         | when it becomes an issue and maybe avoid travel to that
         | country.
        
         | igsomething wrote:
         | .rs (Serbia) for Rust projects.
        
         | jonathankoren wrote:
         | Afghanistan (.af)
        
         | diggan wrote:
         | .cat (Catalunya) is frequently used by fans of the animal Cat,
         | but it's for websites that "have a significant amount of
         | contents in Catalan" - https://domini.cat/en/faqs/
         | 
         | .nu (Niue) was originally owned by a Niue non-profit in
         | Massachusetts, US, but was later transferred into Swedish
         | ownership as "nu" means "now" in Swedish and lots of websites
         | in Sweden were using it.
        
         | anderber wrote:
         | Notion for some reason still use Somalia (.so)
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | Everyone should have learned from .io that this is risky. Thought
       | after the fallout from that there seemed to be a trend away from
       | those ccTLDs and back to traditional ones and then of course the
       | big release of so many new ones that gave lots of options, the
       | ccTLDs as 'trendy' shouldn't be a thing anymore.
        
       | sammyteee wrote:
       | I miss .tk :'(
        
       | blueyes wrote:
       | typo in headline "windfallf" @dang
        
       | rob wrote:
       | Domain registration used to be free until like 1995 or so. Crazy
       | what it has become.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-01-30 23:00 UTC)