[HN Gopher] Not all TLDs are Created Equal
___________________________________________________________________
Not all TLDs are Created Equal
Author : pabs3
Score : 206 points
Date : 2024-02-14 07:51 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hezmatt.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hezmatt.org)
| echelon wrote:
| There shouldn't be ccTLDs.
|
| Governments should exist as individual planes within a single
| top-level namespace. They're crowding the commons and taking
| useful suffixes.
|
| But I'm also of the opinion these TLD namespaces shouldn't be
| bought and controlled by the highest bidders, nor domains by at
| volume squatters.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| I'm more scared of TLD owners either changing ownership of
| domaine and/or price gouging than either of those things - if
| your TLD decides to 10x the cost of your domain, or sell the
| domain to your competitor, what are you gonna do?
| closewith wrote:
| Or just host an annual action, which would be the fairest way
| to determine the value of the domain.
|
| Still, TLD registries know that if they make domains
| unattractive enough, some other identifier will come along.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| Annual auction favours whoever has more money, which is
| fairly anti competitive too.
|
| 'Other identifiers' only happen at scale. 1000x the cost of
| fortune 500's, or a single tld.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Kind of the whole point is that we _don 't_ want domain
| registrars to be able to extract "the value of the domain",
| quite the opposite, we could want to auction for the lowest
| bids for running the technical infrastructure to some
| appropriate standard, so that as much as possible of "the
| value of the domain" stays with people actually running
| services, not goes to someone as unearned rent of a
| namespace monopoly.
| closewith wrote:
| Well, the names obviously have value. Why would that
| value naturally rest with whoever registered it first?
| That's just another unearned monopoly.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Because a big part of that value comes only after - and
| only because - whoever registered the name invested into
| that brand, sometimes by continued business and
| reputation, sometimes by marketing.
|
| For example, the name ycombinator.com has _some_ value on
| its own, but I think you won 't contest that the _vast
| majority_ of the current value of that name arose only
| because a popular community was ran on this domain name
| for decades, and if hackernews was instead run on
| scombinator.com or whatever, then the value of
| ycombinator.com would be just a fraction of what it
| currently is.
| Macha wrote:
| It would only be fair if we assumed all people had an exact
| equal amount of resources and therefore if person A outbids
| person B, it's because it means more to person A than
| person B, rather than say person A having 100x the
| resources of person B.
|
| We also don't force auction land off every year, because
| the costs (both financial and social) of that churn and
| insecurity are way worse than the gains from the resources
| being allocated for maximum economic value.
| throwawayqqq11 wrote:
| Make an .onion mirror and educate the masses.
|
| There should be a way to abuse the tor network as a dns into
| the clear web.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| Ah yes, grandma you should learn how to use tor so you can
| visit my e-commerce site through an obscure url that's
| meaningless to you just be sure not to get scammed.
| throwawayqqq11 wrote:
| Tor has solved the centralized name service problem. Once
| it gets adopted up by browsers, your grandma only has to
| bookmark weird names.
| maxcoder4 wrote:
| Tor browser is not harder to use then Firefox or Chrome.
| And people don't type urls, they click on links.
| h0p3 wrote:
| Unironically, I agree to the first claim, and I think i2p
| merits even higher consideration.
|
| Worthy attempts to resolve Zooko's triangle are going to
| require us to have trust in some stack, and it's hard to
| decentralize that appropriately. Namecoin may be one of the
| few examples of a b-word worth considering here.
| Ultimately, however, if the workers are to own the means of
| productions, there is no substitute for using and owning
| keys (and if that means people have to rely upon those they
| know and trust to assist them in this, then so be it). I
| don't predict that convention will arise in general, but I
| do prescribe it.
| silisili wrote:
| Disagree. ccTLDs at least let you know you're dealing with the
| country in question - revenue.gov.uk is more trustworthy than
| revenue.gov.buzz or some other rando gTLD.
|
| People should generally just stop buying ccTLD domains for
| personal use. .ly, .ai, tv isn't as necessary or cool as they
| think it is.
| benjojo12 wrote:
| Amusingly, the project/company that the person you're
| replying to is using .AI domain (see their HN bio), so
| clearly their opinions about how ccTLDs shouldn't exist can't
| be that strong
| echelon wrote:
| It shouldn't be a ccTLD.
|
| Look at these arbitrary .ai ccTLD rules [1], as originally
| posted by p4bl0:
|
| > The terms and conditions of .ai domain names include
| things such as "not asking for investors" (without an
| Anguilla license to be a bank, broker, public company, ICO,
| exchange, or gambling site) and "not violating copyrights",
| both of which are... complicated for a lot of AI-related
| startups that chose to use a .ai domain.
|
| That's arbitrary and horrible. Thoughts shouldn't be so
| encumbered.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39367730
| seszett wrote:
| These don't seem arbitrary but totally in line with what
| a ccTLD means.
|
| Domains with the .ai TLD must obviously respect Anguilla
| law, just like the use .gov is restricted by the US
| government.
| krab wrote:
| They mean .ai should exist but it shouldn't be managed by a
| foreign country. ;-)
| tsimionescu wrote:
| I think they believe that .ai should exist as a TLD, but
| _not_ as a ccTLD. They 'd basically like the Anguilles to
| not be in control of this TLD. Using it despite that is not
| inconsistent.
|
| Not that I agree with them, by the way. ccTLDs have to
| exist, countries have an obvious write to host their own
| TLDs without having to rely on others.
| arkh wrote:
| > People should generally just stop buying ccTLD domains for
| personal use.
|
| firstname@lastname.countryCode email addresses look good tho.
| maxcoder4 wrote:
| >People should generally just stop buying ccTLD domains for
| personal use.
|
| People should buy ccTLDs more often. I try to stick to
| domains in my country TLD when possible, instead of getting a
| generic (.com) one.
| SahAssar wrote:
| > Governments should exist as individual planes within a single
| top-level namespace.
|
| Isn't that exactly how it works? The top level namespace is
| ".", every goverment controls a namespace under that.
|
| Or do you mean that we should have .se.gov, .uk.gov and no
| government control over non-.gov domains?
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > Or do you mean that we should have .se.gov, .uk.gov and no
| government control over non-.gov domains?
|
| Yes, that would be a substantial improvement.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| uk.gob us.gob etc. though. Why should we use the English
| word for government?
| midasuni wrote:
| OP is a classic imperial citizen with no concept of the
| world outside his empire
| samatman wrote:
| Is http the correct abbreviation for your language's
| translation of hypertext transport protocol?
| SahAssar wrote:
| Because for most international standards we based it
| either on french or english. Recently (the last half
| century or so) it's been a lot more english, which is
| nice since it's the most widely spoken language.
| lifthrasiir wrote:
| > Governments should exist as individual planes within a single
| top-level namespace.
|
| Do you want something like `foo.us.com` (instead of
| `foo.com.us`)? That doesn't sound like a meaningful difference,
| and can be worse than the status quo especially given that
| different governments would want a different set of second-
| level domains anyway.
| nativeit wrote:
| Not really relevant, but "us.com" is a weird type of sub-top-
| level domain now, I think some other "cc.com" domains have
| popped up as well.
| quectophoton wrote:
| I have mixed feelings on this.
|
| On one hand, as an outsider it seems like every country needs
| to bow down their heads to the North American ICANN to ask for
| permission to have their own TLD listed in their root servers
| (even if those servers are already located in the country
| that's asking for permissions).
|
| But on the other hand, even if every country actually owned
| their root DNS servers and were completely independent from
| each other on this regard, everyone already expects the
| internet to work a certain way. So keeping things like they are
| now is the more pragmatic way to go.
|
| It would be doable in an alternate universe, e.g. every domain
| is local except those who have a specific TLD for international
| stuff. Similar to how country calling codes work; all numbers
| are national unless you use "+something" or "00something". So
| companies would have "home advantage" with their domain names
| because users from their own country wouldn't need the
| international TLD.
|
| (Yes, there's issues and things to think about if things were
| done that way, and I can certainly make this message longer,
| but everyone everywhere is already used to how things work now
| so there's not much point.)
|
| There's a similar "issue" with IP addresses (which are
| controlled by North American IANA (which is controlled by North
| American ICANN)), but in that case it's easier to solve because
| they are more invisible, not something the common person deals
| with daily.
| p4bl0 wrote:
| That's clearly a very bad idea. Maybe .gov was supposed to be
| that initially? The USA have it for themselves alone.
| Thankfully other countries have their ccTLD and can reserve a
| subdomain for their government official websites, like .gouv.fr
| in France, because they can't have .fr.gov (which would look
| strange anyway, since "gov" is a shorthand for the english
| word).
|
| And this is not the only instance. Initially, the .edu was for
| all education institutions, but at some point it was
| unilaterally decided that only higher education institutions in
| the USA should be authorized to use such domains, which is a
| shame. For institutions still using it outside the US because
| they registered it before this decision, a single mishaps like
| missing the renewal deadline and they won't ever be able to get
| their domain back. And .edu can only be renewed in the last two
| weeks before expiration (thankfully now it is possible to pay
| for three years at once rather than a single one but that's
| recent).
|
| So, the history of US-centric management of the internet
| strongly suggest that it's a good idea that countries have and
| can control their own TLD. Even if a few people feel like their
| vanity domain name should use what happens to be a ccTLD.
| kube-system wrote:
| > Maybe .gov was supposed to be that initially? The USA have
| it for themselves alone.
|
| .gov dates to 1984, back when the internet was the ARPA-
| Internet. At the time _the whole thing_ was a US military
| network that some research institutions were permitted to
| connect to. .edu was never intended to be used for every
| school in the world, just the institutions collaborating on
| US government research.
|
| https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc920
|
| If you think about the history of the internet from today's
| international perspective, it sounds strange, because it
| never was that from the beginning. It always was a US
| military computer network that grew way beyond the initial
| intent. It wasn't until 2016 that the US government decided
| to hand over control to the international community.
| p4bl0 wrote:
| > .edu was never intended to be used for every school in
| the world
|
| There was a time when .edu domains were attributed upon
| simple requests as long as you were an education related
| institution, from wherever in the world. It only later
| became paid, and then restricted to US institutions in 2001
| (that is _16 years after_ the creation of the .edu TLD,
| contrary to what you say). I know this because I inherited
| the management of such a domain for a French university
| directly from the person who created it back then and who
| told me the whole history of how they got hold of this
| domain name.
|
| I insist on saying "institutions" and not "schools" because
| it's what I can see. Examples still in use in France
| includes polytechnique.edu [1] but also snes.edu, which is
| the website of the main workers union for middle and high
| school teachers in France (SNES-FSU).
|
| Also, note that nothing in its text seems to limit the
| scope of the RFC 920, the one you linked, to the US.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_polytechnique
| midasuni wrote:
| How's the connectivity in Anguilla?
| zokier wrote:
| There shouldn't be any gTLDs. Registrations for legacy TLDs
| should have closed when ccTLDs were introduced. There is no
| other generally accepted division of world except countries
| with their sovereignity. All entities with presence on internet
| are generally subject to some country. The handful of other
| entities (UN etc) can be handled as special cases.
| p4bl0 wrote:
| About this, it didn't get traction but yesterday I submitted
| this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39356410
|
| The terms and conditions of .ai domain names include things such
| as "not asking for investors" (without an _Anguilla_ license to
| be a bank, broker, public company, ICO, exchange, or gambling
| site) and "not violating copyrights", both of which are...
| complicated for a lot of AI-related startups that chose to use a
| .ai domain.
| rvnx wrote:
| This is the much more interesting news / fact, people relying
| on a weak .ai TLD for their billion dollar idea.
| nottorp wrote:
| Most billion dollar ideas are worth about 2 cents aren't
| they?
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| The idea is worth 2 cents.
|
| The successful execution could be worth $2b.
| chippiewill wrote:
| They clearly tie "not asking for investors" to "don't be a
| scam", so I don't think any legitimate AI startup has a concern
| on that front. Most startups aren't exactly pitching for
| investment on their home page anyway.
| agos wrote:
| I remember .ly domains, at the time widely used as url
| shorteners, having troubles in times of political unrest.
| stigi wrote:
| In a few days my domain `foodba.by` is expiring after I stopped
| transferring funds to Belarus after the role the country took
| during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
|
| Glad that side project never took of :-)
| nemetroid wrote:
| My local ccTLD answers to the democratic government on which I
| vote. ICANN is a foreign entity and answers to the US government.
| throwaway11460 wrote:
| My TLD answering to the democratic government on which I have 1
| of 10 million votes - and most of it not going the way I'd like
| - is my worst fear.
| WindyMiller wrote:
| Still, if that's your worst fear, at least you must have a
| pretty good government.
| throwaway11460 wrote:
| No, it's just the only thing left where they can touch me.
| Macha wrote:
| Better it answers to a board of directors where you have 0
| votes?
| Gormo wrote:
| ...especially if 9.9 million of those votes are being cast by
| people on the basis of questions completely unrelated to TLD
| governance, and who may not even be aware that such a thing
| exists.
|
| I've never understood the model of having a _single_
| democratic process be the arbiter of _every_ issue. It just
| allows gamesmanship where factions can play up issue X to win
| votes, then use the political power they obtain to push their
| agenda on completely unrelated issue Y. I suspect this is a
| major motivation for a lot of the exaggerated political
| polarization around symbolic "culture war" issues.
| palata wrote:
| In a _functioning_ democracy, the government does indeed
| represent the people. Not every country is lucky enough to
| have a functioning democracy of course, and the people only
| gets to vote once every few years for a president that _by
| design_ does not represent them.
|
| I trust the ccTLD of my country more than the gTLDs that
| are private entities.
| Gormo wrote:
| >In a functioning democracy, the government does indeed
| represent the people.
|
| I don't even consider it logically possible for a
| singular government advancing a singular policy to
| represent "the people", because that concept represents
| an aggregation of many distinct individuals and
| communities, and all controversies and conflicts of
| interests that are addressed via politics emerge from
| _within_ that aggregation.
|
| Politics is a tool for mitigating disputes arising from
| divergences of values or conflicts of interests within
| "the people", so the idea of treating it as something
| that expresses a singular set of values or interests
| applicable to the whole is incorrect.
|
| > I trust the ccTLD of my country more than the gTLDs
| that are private entities.
|
| The point is that _everything_ is a private entity, even
| the government-run ones. All institutions are groups of
| specific people inhabiting a bounded context, and there
| 's no mechanism for effectively making any particular
| institution accountable to a speculative aggregation of
| millions, so the distinction of between "public" and
| "private" is largely meaningless.
| palata wrote:
| We seem to be living in pretty different countries :-).
|
| > so the distinction of between "public" and "private" is
| largely meaningless
|
| In my country, what's "public" is owned by the
| government, and the government is elected by the people.
| There is an obvious difference between what is public and
| what is private, to the point where it is actually hard
| for me to imagine that someone _living in my country_ may
| believe that the distinction is meaningless.
|
| > I don't even consider it logically possible for a
| singular government advancing a singular policy to
| represent "the people"
|
| Imagine that the people elects the government. Not one
| president, but the whole government. You will end up with
| elected officials ranging from the left to the right. If
| more people vote for the right, then there are more
| officials on the right, but there are still others that
| are elected on the left/center. For important matters,
| you have a referendum, where the people can directly vote
| on the topic at hand.
|
| The result of that is that if you _always_ disagree with
| everything the government does, it means that you are
| part of a pretty small minority in your country. So you,
| individually, are not represented by the government, but
| _most of the citizen_ are.
|
| That's the whole point. If you believe that everyone
| should have a government with which they agree 100% of
| the time, then that's not possible. But if you believe
| that, you need to learn how to compromise, for your own
| sake.
| kijin wrote:
| Good for you. Can't say the same for many of the exotic ccTLDs
| that are considered sexy these days.
|
| On the other hand, there are oddities like .eu that have too
| many layers of abstraction between the people and the actual
| administrators; zombie ccTLDs like .su and .yu which stand for
| countries that no longer exist; and phantom ccTLDs like .io
| which don't stand for any officially recognized country at all.
| So it really depends on which ccTLD you're talking about.
| nemetroid wrote:
| > So it really depends on which ccTLD you're talking about.
|
| Indeed. ccTLD vanity domains are a bad idea in general, and
| using .af for such purposes is an extraordinarily bad idea.
| As another comment pointed out, the article's conclusion of
| "avoid all ccTLDs" rather than "do your due diligence" is
| weird.
| kijin wrote:
| Agreed. I would generally not use a ccTLD unless 1) it's
| from a stable first-world democracy, and 2) I have either
| citizenship or a strong business presence in that country.
|
| Having said that, if OP is from the United States, I can
| sort of understand why the conclusion goes "avoid all
| ccTLDs." Americans have a tendency to treat the initial set
| of gTLDs as their own -- not only .gov, .mil, and .edu, but
| all the well-known ones, too.
| graemep wrote:
| I would add, if it is the place where your business is
| located (or you live).
|
| Regardless of how good or bad a government it is, you are
| already subject to its jurisdiction.
| ithkuil wrote:
| Iirc .io is not _a_ country but a territory of another
| country (British Indian ocean territory).
|
| A similar case is for American Samoa (.as), Guam (.gu). Etc.
|
| Although it is technically correct to say they are not
| "internationally recognized countries", that's because they
| are not countries, not because they are not internationally
| recognized (they very much are). Thus the qualifier is
| confusing.
|
| It is like if I claimed that my cat is not an "dog from this
| planet". That statement is true not because my cat comes from
| another planet, but simply because it's not a dog in the
| first place.
| nicole_express wrote:
| The difference between the British Indian Ocean Territory
| and say, American Samoa is that, as far as the BIOT
| government is concerned, there is no permanent population
| there. Obviously the US military base can just use .mil. So
| if ccTLDs are limited to locals, nobody is entitled to .io
| at all.
|
| The Chagossians do exist, and I'm not trying to diminish
| their claims. But my understanding is that they claim the
| islands as a part of Mauritius, which also has its own
| domain name (.mu), and wouldn't identify with the colonial
| BIOT government that expelled them in any case.
| ithkuil wrote:
| Yeah, the timeless misalignment between what ought to be
| and what technically is
| Symbiote wrote:
| It's still a territory with some governance and so on.
|
| https://www.biot.gov.io/ is a genuine use.
|
| https://www.sure.io/ is another (an ISP).
| graemep wrote:
| Is the the Chagossians who claim the islands as mart of
| Mauritius or the Mauritians?
|
| There are also a number of other territories that are not
| countries that have ccTLDs: .re, .gs, .mq, .fk etc.
| PeterisP wrote:
| That's the whole point - don't treat "ccTLDs" as a single
| category, and the diference there shouldn't be between
| "exotic ccTLDs" and "common ccTLDs" but rather " _your_ ccTLD
| " and "foreign ccTLDs".
|
| If you are in Afghanistan and run your business in
| Afghanistan in a legitimate way, intending to comply with
| Afghanistan laws, then there's no issue at all in using an
| .af TLD.
|
| And conversely, you should treat e.g. .uk and .fr as "exotic"
| if you're not in there and don't intend to spend the time and
| effort to learn about what is permitted there and not, it
| would make all sense for you to get kicked off of these
| domains by doing something that's obviously legal where you
| live.
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| ccTLDs are issued by IANA which is literally setup by the US
| government.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Assigned_Numbers_Au...
|
| Meanwhile ICANN is an international company so it doesn't
| answer to any government except within their respective
| borders.
| kijeda wrote:
| The US Government ended its involvement in IANA when it moved
| to an international oversight model in 2016. IANA is operated
| by Public Technical Identifiers which is an affiliate of
| ICANN, and ICANN provides all of its funding. Governments
| have a say in how ICANN operates through its Government
| Advisory Committee, at which all governments -- including the
| US -- have a seat.
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| Great clarification. What I'm poking at is that in all
| likelihood the US will hold the same view towards a gTLD as
| a ccTLD and for the same reasons. It is in line with
| Western ideals to preserve free speech, and so governments
| of Western societies must appeal to those ideals. The US is
| no exception, as seen by its willingness to be hands off
| with regards to IANA and ICANN.
| seszett wrote:
| As always, these articles seem to be written from a US or
| "international" point of view that doesn't seem to understand
| that _country_ TLDs are actually, at least initially, intended
| for the people of that country.
|
| They are great, absolutely useful, and much lower risk than gTLDs
| operated by questionable commercial entities. But _obviously_
| they depend on the country they represent.
|
| I would argue that the main problem is that they should never
| have been available to entities that don't have ties to the
| country. That would have solved most of these problems that seem
| to boil down to "when you pick a random country TLD because it
| looks cute but you don't know much about the country, sometimes
| you're surprised by that country's policies".
| bux93 wrote:
| Also, it's not like gTLDs don't have weird policies. A ton of
| them are a money grab trying to extort money from trademark
| owners, and they might disappear or raise prices overnight.
| Com/net/org repeatedly tried shenanigans in the past.
|
| Replacing "do your due diligence" with a heuristic "cc = bad!"
| is not advisable.
| nytesky wrote:
| Why did com net org domains try in past, price gouging?
| diggan wrote:
| Two events that come to mind:
|
| - The attempt to remove price caps on .org and .info by
| ICANN, seen as testing the waters for doing the same with
| .com if the cap removal was successful, which it wasn't
|
| - PIR (operator of .org) was almost sold to some shell
| company which was gonna transform it into a for-profit from
| it's current non-profit, this was blocked by ICANN if I
| remember correctly
|
| Maybe there are more that I don't know about/don't remember
| donmcronald wrote:
| > The attempt to remove price caps on .org and .info by
| ICANN
|
| I thought those were removed for .org. Did this [1] get
| reversed?
|
| 1. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/icann-
| eliminates...
| NewJazz wrote:
| >this was blocked by ICANN if I remember correctly
|
| ICANN executives were in on the play IIRC. They abandoned
| efforts once regulators started scrutinizing.
| renewiltord wrote:
| It was blocked by the California Attorney General
| threatening to investigate them. Essentially, historical
| accident of ICANN being a California-incorporated 501c3
| rescued .org from the ICANN board.
| cqqxo4zV46cp wrote:
| Why? Because they can?
| kome wrote:
| yes, lol, he was missing the absolute elephant in the room. if
| your business operate in france or germany you better have and
| use the .fr or .de domain, or at least the .eu one. big brands
| do it (such amazon, google, apple) so do you.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| > big brands do it (such amazon, google, apple) so do you.
|
| A few counterpoints:
|
| - https://www.fnac.com/
|
| - https://www.ikea.com/nl/nl/
|
| - https://www.apple.com/nl/
| teddyh wrote:
| Where the web site resides goes in waves; sometimes people
| diverge it out into multiple sites based on ccTLD, and
| sometimes they redirect all ccTLDs into one central site
| with sub-pages. But you can bet they will _always_ be
| keeping the ccTLD domains registered. I.e. FNAC still owns
| fnac.nl, Apple still owns apple.nl and IKEA still owns
| ikea.nl, and if you go there you will be redirected to the
| correct web page.
| fngjdflmdflg wrote:
| >FNAC still owns fnac.nl [...] and if you go there you
| will be redirected to the correct web page.
|
| That doesn't seem correct
|
| >ping fnac.nl
|
| >Pinging fnac.nl [165.160.15.20] with 32 bytes of data:
|
| >Request timed out.
| tephra wrote:
| If you'd tried going to fnac.nl or say use curl for a
| http request you'd see that it is in fact correct. Ping
| does not a http request make as they said in the olden
| days.
| fngjdflmdflg wrote:
| I did try going to fnac.nl on my web browser and it does
| not load. And it still isn't loading for me while
| fnac.com does.
|
| Edit: it does load after some time on my web browser.
| shantara wrote:
| ikea.fr, .de, .nl all exist and redirect to ikea.com
| subdomains. Same for apple.com
| playingalong wrote:
| That doesn't necessarily mean the domains are controlled
| by these entities.
|
| Imagine a sleeper domain squatter.
| kome wrote:
| but still https://www.ikea.nl and https://www.apple.nl
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _I would argue that the main problem is that they should
| never have been available to entities that don 't have ties to
| the country._
|
| The people of Tuvalu would probably argue against this, since
| .tv income represents like 12.5% of the national domestic
| revenue. Taxation is around 15%.
|
| https://finance.gov.tv/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/1st-Supple...
| James_K wrote:
| You could always just donate some money to Tuvalu and use a
| better TLD.
| tialaramex wrote:
| It must necessarily be up to the country to decide what "ties
| to the country" even means anyway. It's important to the
| Irish Republic for example that everybody with connections to
| the _island_ of Ireland counts as Irish, even though de facto
| a corner of their island is occupied by people who (to a
| lesser or greater extent) insist they 're British and are no
| longer part of the EU unlike the Republic. That's how lots of
| British people have Irish EU passports, if they were born on
| the island or have strong connections to it, they're just as
| entitled to a passport as if they'd been born in Dublin, in
| the Republic.
|
| It was interesting to see in that budget that Tuvalu earns
| more from .tv than they do from operating an "Open Registry"
| (aka "Flag of Convenience") for foreign shipping companies,
| which is probably the most analogous arrangement to selling
| domains in your ccTLD from the past.
| messe wrote:
| This is a certainly a nitpick, and pet peeve, but the Irish
| Republic was a revolutionary state between roughly
| 1919-1922. The modern state is just known as Ireland, or
| referred to as the Republic of Ireland.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Fair, too late to correct now.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Northern Ireland is de facto _and_ de jure part of the UK.
| And "British people with Irish passports" may just as well
| be written "Irish people with UK connections". It's worth
| noting that people living in Great Britain often have
| passports by virtue of being a "foreign birth" since you
| may be considered Irish just by having an Irish
| (great-)grandparent.
|
| Finally, as a sibling comment mentions, the state is called
| "Ireland" and though it is accurately described as the
| "Irish republic" or similar, that's not part of the
| official name.
|
| Otherwise you're right and I agree with your point.
| DoughnutHole wrote:
| Ireland is an unusual case because we grant citizenship
| based on your connection to the island rather than the
| country, ie pretty much anyone entitled to British
| citizenship on the basis of being from Northern Ireland
| is also entitled to an Irish citizenship.
|
| Specifically you can be entitled to citizenship from
| birth if either of the following conditions are met:
|
| - at least one parent is an Irish citizen or entitled to
| be one _and_ was born on the island of Ireland
|
| - you are born anywhere on the island of Ireland
| (including Northern Ireland) _and_ at least one parent is
| an Irish or British citizen, a permanent resident of
| Ireland or Northern Ireland, or has been domiciled on the
| island of Ireland for 3 of the past 4 years
|
| You're no longer automatically entitled to Irish
| citizenship via a grandparent born in Ireland if your
| Irish parent was born overseas _unless_ the parent 's
| birth was registered with an Irish diplomatic mission.
| madcaptenor wrote:
| What happens when Tuvalu is uninhabitable due to rising sea
| level? If .tv continues to exist, does that money go to the
| Tuvaluan diaspora?
| James_K wrote:
| > doesn't seem to understand that country TLDs are actually, at
| least initially, intended for the people of that country.
|
| This is a very odd interpretation of an article which is
| essentially saying "don't buy ccTLDs unless you live there".
| seszett wrote:
| That aspect is only talked about at the very end almost as an
| aside, and the phrasing is "[some ccTLDs are] more likely to
| be ok [than other ccTLDs]", "it _might_ be somewhat safer "
| and "gTLDs are at least lower risk than ccTLDs".
|
| This certainly suggests a different conclusion than "don't
| buy ccTLDs unless you live there".
|
| I would say the conclusion of this article is actually "don't
| buy ccTLDs except maybe in some cases that I won't even
| discuss since they seem so rare to me". I would say on the
| other hand that buying a domain with the ccTLD of the country
| you're operating in is a must, and especially so if you're
| operating in a few neighbouring countries.
| James_K wrote:
| > This certainly suggests a different conclusion than
| "don't buy ccTLDs unless you live there".
|
| From the article's conclusion:
|
| > Are ccTLDs Ever Useful?
|
| > I certainly don't think it's a good idea to register a
| domain under a ccTLD for "vanity" purposes: because it
| makes a word, is the same as a file extension you like, or
| because it looks cool.
|
| > Finally, it might be somewhat safer to register under a
| ccTLD if you live in the location involved. At least then
| you might have a better idea of whether your domain is
| likely to get pulled out from underneath you.
| Unfortunately, as the .eu example shows, living somewhere
| today is no guarantee you'll still be living there
| tomorrow, even if you don't move house.
|
| He makes the fair point that, even if they are intended for
| residents, it may not always be safe for them either.
| dbalatero wrote:
| Taking one example, a price hike from $25 -> $75/yr
| affects everyone, including residents.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Some of the more fashionable CCTLDs have discounts for
| actual local businesses/individuals.
| mthoms wrote:
| >That aspect is only talked about at the very end almost as
| an aside
|
| It's talked about at the end because that's usually where
| the conclusion goes. Everything talked about before that is
| providing evidence for said conclusion.
|
| What an odd interpretation. To me it reads as the entire
| point of the article.
| WhitneyLand wrote:
| In this context is "odd interpretation" similar in meaning to
| a passive aggressive form of RTFM?
| tiborsaas wrote:
| > they should never have been available to entities that don't
| have ties to the country
|
| That would have just opened the door to proxy-ownership. You
| register a domain under a company and they let you use it.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| Which is absolutely something that happens with ccTLDs that
| impose that kind of policy today.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| That proxy ownership takes significantly more time and money
| than the domain itself. I think it would prevent "queer.af"
| situations quite well.
| plagiarist wrote:
| .af is so beautiful for vanity domains but only someone
| with a complete and total ignorance of multiple subjects
| would register one for serious use. Yeah, at least
| requiring a proxy you might have someone with enough
| knowledge to point out the mistake there.
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| Seems more like a statement than a mistake.
| plorg wrote:
| In the case of queer.af (as noted in TFA) they registered
| the domain in 2018 when the government was significantly
| different, and, recognizing the political situation, were
| working on moving to a different one.
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| Was the former government empathetic to that? I wouldn't
| have thought so. I'd be interested to hear from someone
| who knows about it.
| plorg wrote:
| On the one hand perhaps yes because they did not lose
| their registration under that government. Also for good
| or ill that government was under some amount of influence
| from the United States which, while not perfect, could be
| seen as offering some amount of influence or protection.
| On the other hand, it was probably more the case that, in
| the absence of the Taliban, the people creating the site
| simply did not have the same concerns as they later
| would.
| et-al wrote:
| What about the early 2000s adoption of .ly (Libya)?
| Gormo wrote:
| Not really. There already are some ccTLDs that do require a
| local nexus, and the registrars just incorporate trustee
| services into the domain registration. There's a bit of a
| price premium, but nothing major, and the time impact
| usually amounts to filling out one extra form when
| purchasing a domain.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| In that case the raised price will still impact the
| likelihood of someone unaware of the ccTLD specifics
| getting their domains registered in countries they've
| never even heard of.
| lobsterthief wrote:
| "Significantly more time and money" just means bigger
| companies will have more of a monopoly on those domains,
| which is also not good.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I don't think I've ever noticed a problem with this. The
| only difference I can find is that the "buy this domain
| for $4000" scammers have a different default language.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| Yup. .NO has restrictions on their domain names. And that
| happens with them. Just ends up with less transparency and
| more costs (that doesn't go to internet infrastructure but
| lawyers etc).
| lolinder wrote:
| It may happen with them, but it's much more rare than with
| .ly and .io and .ai. I can't recall ever seeing a .no.
| sofixa wrote:
| > I would argue that the main problem is that they should never
| have been available to entities that don't have ties to the
| country.
|
| That's already the case for plenty of ccTLDs. .eu, .it., .bg
| and I'm sure many others are only available to citizens or
| legal entities registered in that country.
| usrbinbash wrote:
| > that doesn't seem to understand that country TLDs are
| actually, at least initially, intended for the people of that
| country.
|
| What something is intended for in some hypothetical, ideal
| setting, is a moot point given that the countries have full
| control over their ccTLD.
|
| That's the issue, and the author identifies it correctly.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > I certainly don't think it's a good idea to register a domain
| under a ccTLD for "vanity" purposes: because it makes a word,
| is the same as a file extension you like, or because it looks
| cool.
|
| Well, they're NOT vanity domains. They were created
| specifically for countries, to be owned by countries and
| controlled by countries. The fact that it happens to look neat
| to use that domain doesn't change that fact. When you start
| using such a domain, you should know full well that you are
| tying yourself to a resource that you could lose at any time,
| for any reason. Tying the health of your business to such a
| condition seems crazy to me.
| dundarious wrote:
| They said domain _under_ a ccTLD, so they 're clearly not
| talking about ccTLDs themselves as vanity domains.
| monooso wrote:
| > ...that doesn't seem to understand that country TLDs are
| actually, at least initially, intended for the people of that
| country.
|
| The author appears to understand that perfectly well:
|
| > Those ccTLDs that clearly represent and are associated with a
| particular country are more likely to be OK... > Unfortunately,
| ccTLD registries have a disconcerting habit of changing their
| minds on whether they serve their geographic locality...
| croemer wrote:
| Then they should have added "US" here in the first few
| paragraphs: "Generic TLDs are what most [US] organisations
| and individuals register their domains under:"
| jake200 wrote:
| I fail to see how that is helpful. Is the statement untrue
| without the [US] annotation? The author explicitly mentions
| that a user is the best judge of their country when
| deciding on whether to use that country's ccTLD. That's
| pretty implicit to me that the author is considering a
| larger audience than the US.
| felixfbecker wrote:
| Yes. Growing up in a non-US country, almost every website
| I interacted with or was advertised was the TLD of my
| home country. It was incredibly rare to see global TLDs.
| It usually implied it was a multi-national company, and
| even those often registered an additional domain locally
| because people are more familiar with it. I would guess
| this is the same for most countries except the US, which
| makes that statement untrue.
| cqqxo4zV46cp wrote:
| Yup. A mistake of the Internet that'll surely never be
| corrected for at least the next 50 years at least, is rhe
| US not using a ccTLD like everyone else. Not being able
| to differentiate between a US and 'global' presence based
| on domain name is a tad annoying. The taxonomy is
| immensely useful.
|
| And please for the love of God nobody here lecture me
| about the history of the Internet. I know why it is the
| way it is. But it's a frustrating legacy quirk. Anyone
| that sees it as anything else is just buying into the
| "the US is the universe's 'main country'" BS.
| nightpool wrote:
| > I would guess this is the same for most countries
| except the US, which makes that statement untrue
|
| Only if there are more organizations using ccTLDs outside
| of the US than organizations using generic domains within
| it.
|
| https://domainnamestat.com/statistics/tldtype/all
| indicates that strictly based on domain registration
| counts, ccTLDs are around 39% of total domain
| registrations. So not nothing, but also not a majority.
| tuukkah wrote:
| > _Only if there are more organizations using ccTLDs
| outside of the US than organizations using generic
| domains within it._
|
| "Is the US larger than the world outside it?"
| Lucent wrote:
| This is backwards. ccTLDs are much higher risk than gTLDs
| operated by commercial entities because those entities are
| governed by ICANN which has pricing requirements and a plan in
| place to transfer them if the entity goes under.
| AdamH12113 wrote:
| The whole TLD system is kind of broken and has been for
| decades, ever since companies starting buying the .net and .org
| versions of their domain names to go along with the (then) all-
| important .com. The TLDs were originally designed as a taxonomy
| of organization types. There was a fair bit of discussion about
| dropping TLDs altogether after the internet went mainstream and
| .com domain names became much scarcer, but there never seemed
| to be enough agreement to make it happen.
|
| It's interesting to think about how much of the old internet
| and its protocols were built around the assumption that
| internet-capable computers and (especially) networks were owned
| and tightly-administered by institutions, not individuals.
| Terr_ wrote:
| If I had my druthers, top level domains would exclusively be
| for sovereign legal jurisdictions. (And _maybe_ EU or UN.)
|
| That way it would at least match all the indirect rules
| imposed by those jurisdictions, such as treaties over
| conflicting trademarks, and it would be clear which courts
| should get involved in any lawsuits or appeals, etc.
|
| It's kind of a Conway's Law thing: The system will suck the
| least when the code-organization is aligned to the group-
| entities.
|
| P.S.: Sure, if you launched a new global company you'd want
| to register lots of different domains, but that's already
| true _anyway_.
| throwanem wrote:
| > they should never have been available to entities that don't
| have ties to the country
|
| And lose the revenue? Caveat emptor.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| > To register (and maintain) a domain name ending in .eu, you
| have to be a resident of the EU.
|
| Tiny nit (and I only bring it up because it is relevant to me),
| but you can also own a .eu domain if you are a _citizen_ of the
| EU (or EEA), wherever you are resident.
|
| This rule may have been brought in as a result of Brexit, as the
| Europa website says:
|
| > Previously restricted to residents of EU/EEA countries, any EU
| citizen can now register a .eu domain name wherever they are in
| the world.
|
| https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/faqs/eu-domain-name...
|
| The point still stand, of course. It was (and remains) a headache
| for a lot of people. I still haven't told my registrar I no
| longer live in the EU because although I am (as an EU citizen)
| legally entitled to my .eu domain, I don't trust them to
| understand that.
| joelccr wrote:
| Some EU countries also have the same policy for their ccTLDs,
| although I believe the EU rules are that they aren't allowed to
| restrict to just their own country's citizens/residents like
| others worldwide do, they can only restrict non-EU
| registration.
|
| Caused me some grief post-Brexit when my firstname.tld domain
| happened to be some French islands and AFNIC started indicating
| they'd enforce it. Fortunately I have the .uk now.
| tialaramex wrote:
| It wouldn't make any sense to require a specific EU country.
| The EU's Freedom of Movement rules mean that on the whole all
| of any EU member state's citizens are welcome to go wherever
| they please within the EU, so you can't require "citizenship"
| or "residence" of a specific country.
|
| The way this comes about is interesting. First up the EC (the
| predecessor entity to the EU) is a trade bloc, so it wants to
| ensure you can move say money and goods around, not much use
| being a trading bloc if it's there's a lot of taxes and
| paperwork to move your partly finished Doodads from Germany
| to France, then when they're finished ship them to Italy for
| sale. But wait, if we can only move _money_ and _goods_ we
| create a race to the bottom, the workers would be trapped, so
| move production to wherever the most desperate workers are
| and pay them as little as possible. That doesn 't sound like
| we've made anything better. So they say _workers_ can move
| too, if you want to live somewhere with better pay, or a
| nicer climate, that 's cool. And then the EU's court says
| well, what exactly is a worker? Is Bob a worker if he just
| moved to your country hoping to find a job? Does he get to
| bring his elderly grandmother? _She 's_ not going to get a
| job, how is she a worker? So they decide no, not just
| workers, all people. All EU people are welcome to move
| anywhere inside the EU.
| blibble wrote:
| > All EU people are welcome to move anywhere inside the EU.
|
| this is not true, it is still "freedom of movement (for
| workers)"
|
| the granny example is explicitly not permitted unless they
| have sufficient funds to support themselves without the
| target states' assistance (meaning independently wealthy)
|
| you can be deported otherwise
| jefftk wrote:
| If you move somewhere to work at age 62 and then retire
| at 65, can you stay there? Do you have to become a
| citizen first?
|
| (Just curious; I know this is a tangent!)
| jmopp wrote:
| Presumably you would have built up a pension in your
| previous country, which you can draw from. That would
| satisfy the requirement for an independent source of
| income. When Britain was in the EU it was (and still is)
| common for pensioners to live in Spain.
| Symbiote wrote:
| You gain the right to permanent residence after 5 years
| of residence under the other conditions.
|
| The 65 year old would need to live from their pension for
| a couple more years.
| croemer wrote:
| The comment you're responding to is wrong. Yes of course
| you can stay there, you can even move there post-
| retirement. You just can't get the very lowest level of
| benefits unless you've lived there for long enough.
| croemer wrote:
| > the granny example is explicitly not permitted
|
| This is totally wrong.
|
| The granny can get her pension anywhere in the EU, no
| "independent wealth" required.
|
| There are some restrictions if you have no means to
| support yourself and require benefits, but the
| restrictions are definitely not as broad as "granny needs
| much money on her bank account"
|
| Read: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-
| policy/policies/ju... and links contained therein
| blibble wrote:
| not all grannies are of pensionable age
|
| your linked page alludes to this, without details
|
| > In order to stay in another EU country for more than
| three months, EU citizens have to meet certain conditions
| depending on their status (for example worker, self-
| employed, student, etc.) and may be asked to comply with
| administrative formalities.
|
| if you follow the wizard on your page you get this:
|
| https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/residence
| -ri...
| nativeit wrote:
| My registrar only requires that I have an EU mailing address,
| so for the handful of EU domains I maintain I have an
| astonishingly cheap PO box in Spain (I live in the US).
| Presumably, there's a trash can somewhere outside Barcelona
| that has a bunch of snailmail domain spam addressed to me.
| maxcoder4 wrote:
| Your registrar only verifies that you have an EU mailing
| address. You can absolutely lose your domains if they for
| some reason audit you and decide you are in breach if their
| terms
|
| This is extremely unlikely - I wouldn't lose sleep over this.
| This will only happen when you're doing something
| controversial/illegal and your registrar is actively trying
| to legally get rid of you.
| xoa wrote:
| > _This is extremely unlikely - I wouldn 't lose sleep over
| this. This will only happen when you're doing something
| controversial/illegal and your registrar is actively trying
| to legally get rid of you._
|
| But per the subject of the article I think it's worth
| taking very seriously from multiple angles. Domains are
| something a lot of people care about for a very long time,
| their entire lives, or the case of a business its whole
| existence as an entity. My oldest core domains hit their
| 25th anniversary this year. A lot can happen over the
| course of decades, including vast changes in what counts as
| "controversial/illegal". The winds of politics can and have
| shifted, repeatedly, a great deal, and technological
| advance has for better and very much for worse reduced a
| lot of gray area and informal aspects of law/culture that
| people depended on (though boosting others).
|
| If one is counting on "audits are very expensive and thus
| receive significant political push back" it's worth
| reflecting on whether another 25 years of AI and a host of
| developments might change that. Could the subject of EU
| domain ownership at any point become a hot topic? Are there
| possible financial/social incentives that might push
| someone to make it a hot topic (absolutely!)? Etc etc, but
| I think part of the point of the article and certainly
| something I've come to consider more myself is it's worth
| taking a longer view more often when considering
| foundational stuff.
| donatj wrote:
| I remember in the late 90s there were at least a couple companies
| promoting alternative TLDs outside the standard set. I have no
| idea how that was implemented. Just special DNS servers with
| extra TLDs? Or something more involved on the OS levels?
|
| Seems like there could be an appetite for such a thing these
| days. TLDs outside ICANNs control.
| seszett wrote:
| It was an alternative DNS but I forgot which it was.
|
| You had to switch to these DNS servers, which the added
| "benefit" that DNS queries returning NXDOMAIN were hijacked to
| show you ads.
|
| I don't think this has any usefulness anymore, since gTLDs
| exist.
| donatj wrote:
| gTLDs cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can run your
| own DNS servers for waaay less.
|
| I think the usefulness could come from community controlled
| TLDs. Might not be a mainstream thing but free libre TLDs for
| open source projects and what not?
| Towaway69 wrote:
| Something similar to what Let's Encrypt did to the SSL
| Certificate market. Before they came along, SSL root
| certificate were way over priced and overnight, the market
| simply disappeared.
|
| The same should happen to gTLDs.
| Ayesh wrote:
| IIRC, the cost is ~$200k one time and ~$25/yr. Shitcoins
| get magnitudes higher crowd funding. Not impossible to do
| at all.
| alfons_foobar wrote:
| On a technical level, this is very simple - just change the
| list of DNS root servers on all "participating" machines to
| point to your own new nameservers.
|
| But then you have the problem: Who manages your community
| controlled domains? Who keeps track of who owns which
| domain?
| jesprenj wrote:
| OpenNIC is a project that replaces and extends the official
| DNS root maintained by Verisign.
|
| http://opennic.org
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Are there any notable websites actually on that
| infrastructure?
|
| The 'Project Showcase' only shows a single example.
| duskwuff wrote:
| No. It's an old hobby project which has nearly fizzled
| out; the web site hasn't been updated in years.
|
| Alternate roots are on thin ice in general nowadays,
| especially as there's no reasonable way to safely issue
| TLS certificates for domains which aren't under the ICANN
| root. (Running your own CA introduces a lot of messy
| trust issues and is inadvisable.)
| jesprenj wrote:
| Maybe if we switched from the current state of PKI with
| CAs to DNSSEC and DANE/TLSA, it would be easier.
|
| But doing that would mean to either trust the current
| resolver you are using, which is unacceptable, as it's
| sometimes cloudflare or google, or running your own
| resolver on every device -- which also does not work. It
| is absolutely crucial for the DNS system we have today
| that there's a small number of resolvers that have large
| caches, otherwise root servers would blow up. Unless we
| massively start implementing some novel RFCs.
| AndyMcConachie wrote:
| I can't think of one instance where ICANN has told a TLD to
| remove a domain at the second level. Maybe it happened in the
| past, but I'm drawing a blank.
| zokier wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root
| donkulous wrote:
| I think the common one was "new.net" and yes, it was just some
| kind of software extension that either added to or replaced
| your DNS queries. If you didn't have the software installed,
| you could still get to, say example.faketld by going to
| example.faketld.new.net
|
| I remember them pushing to get ISPs to use their custom DNS,
| and I think there was least one major ISP that implemented it
| natively.
| maxcoder4 wrote:
| There are obvious examples of tlds outside of ICANN control:
|
| * OpenNIC domains * .onion, .i2p and other alternative networks
| * .bit, .eth and other cryptocurrency backed domains
| unlog wrote:
| My ccTLD gives me much more confidence than some random company
| that rents TLDs governed by who knows. It's provided by my ISP
| which is owned by the state, which serves the population.
| arielcostas wrote:
| > which is owned by the state, which serves the population
|
| Until it doesn't. Corruption and coups are a thing.
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| Then what?
|
| I know DNS has a terrible centralized design, but what is the
| alternative?
| usrbinbash wrote:
| Good for you, but...
|
| a) that's not the case in many places, as demonstrated by what
| happened in Afghanistan, where control over the ccTLD now lies
| with a group of religious extremists
|
| b) you have no guarantee that the happy state of affairs with
| your ccTLD will continue. Governments change, and so do
| politics.
| hnbad wrote:
| Sure but all of this is true for gTLDs, with a different set
| of caveats.
|
| Corporations don't exist in a vacuum, they're subject to the
| laws of the jurisdictions they're incorporated in.
| Corporations aren't permanent and unchanging, they can pivot
| in unexpected ways or enact arbitrary decisions that may
| affect you.
|
| Most people just get to pretend gTLDs are safe from politics
| because most gTLDs are ultimately under US jurisidiction and
| even outside the US we often treat that as the default. The
| mistake of the people using dot-af domains was to treat af as
| if this is also true for them - which even prior to the US
| retreat wasn't a safe bet.
|
| What's also missing from the discourse around `queer.af` is
| that they were merely one domain of many affected because the
| Taliban withdrew from Gandi (among others?), not just the
| people running that Mastodon instance. It's just the most
| obvious example because of the nature of social media.
| yard2010 wrote:
| If you happen to live in a state that serves its population
| that is
| palata wrote:
| Obviously. I think we just have to accept that some people
| trust their government, and some people don't. There is no
| rule there: use the one you trust (and preferably use the
| ccTLD only if you have something to do with that country,
| because that's the whole point).
| nicky0 wrote:
| I'm still salty about the .eu thing. I was an EU citizen for 42
| years of my life and I used a .eu domain as my primary email
| address for many years. Not only did the EU decide I could not
| longer have it, they've made it available for anyone to register.
|
| Hundreds of my website registrations were tied to that email
| address. Thankfully I had sufficient advance notice to tediously
| re-register the majority of sites to a non-.eu domain email. But
| there are still a few I didn't catch.
|
| Thanks for that, EU. (Edit: thanks also to the Brexit voters, yes
| .... but I still contend that the EU could have made an
| accomodation for existing registrants to hold onto their domains,
| instead of take them away and re-list them for anyone to get.
|
| Edit 2: Of course, any Brit well-resourced enough to set up some
| kind of shell company in EU to hold on to their domain will have
| been able to keep it. So the claim that "UK people should not be
| able to own .eu domain. It's confusing and misleading" does not
| hold water ... it's perfectly possible to do so even today by
| various trickery. So this decision only affects regular people.
| Not big business or the very wealthy.)
| dijit wrote:
| I guess it's a weird thought experiment, but what if scotland
| left the UK, should they still have rights to use .uk tld's?
| Maybe yes for historical reasons but it is a twee bit odd to
| have what is essentially a foreign entity representing
| themselves with your name.
|
| Do you UK? Or have you always resided outside the EU?
| nicky0 wrote:
| I would argue for a "grandfathering in" provision. Both in
| the Brexit case and your hypothetical Scexit.
|
| So, if Scotland became independent, the remaining UK might
| close the .uk ccTLD for new Scottish registrations but
| existing domain holders should have the right to retain their
| registrations indefinitely.
|
| I think it's ethically wrong to forcible take away someone's
| domain name without _exceptionally_ good reason (such as
| abusive use of domain or whatever).
|
| (Yes, I am a UK citizen. By "the .eu thing" I was referring
| to the situation as described in the article.)
| kolp wrote:
| First, nobody owns a domain; it is assigned to a
| registrant, by the registry, via the registrar. No domain
| "owner" has ownership rights; you have the right to use the
| domain subject to the rules of the registry. If the rules
| of the registry require the registrant to be a citizen or
| body of the EU and the registrant no longer meets that
| requirement, the registrant loses the right to use the
| domain.
|
| Your proposed solution of grandfathering existing
| registrations would cause confusion or uncertainty for end
| users (site visitors) who could not ascertain with
| confidence that the organisation with which they were
| dealing was actually in the EU, or registered to an EU
| citizen or body.
|
| Your assertion that the EU enforced the established rules
| because they were "being dicks" to the UK is similar to the
| anti-EU tropes spouted by the anti-EU press in the UK, eg
| the EU is punishing Brits by making them use non-EU
| passport lanes, restricting their visits to 90 days, etc.
| Your fellow citizens voted (unfortunately) to leave the
| organisation and these are the consequences of non-
| membership. If you decide to leave your golf club, you
| don't get to continue using the golf course and clubhouse.
| nicky0 wrote:
| > Your proposed solution of grandfathering existing
| registrations would cause confusion or uncertainty for
| end users (site visitors) who could not ascertain with
| confidence that the organisation with which they were
| dealing was actually in the EU, or registered to an EU
| citizen or body.
|
| I don't buy that argument. A UK citizen can still
| register .eu TLD through a company they control in the
| EU, if they have the resources to do so. The EU's
| decision to rescind registrations for former EU citizens
| only really affects non-wealthy private citizens. The
| wealthy, and large companies, can get around the rule.
|
| Secondly, there is precendent for this kind of thing.
| When Soviet Union broke up, .su domains registrants were
| allowed to keep their registrations despite now being
| Ukrainian or Estonian or whatever citizens. Similarly
| when Yugoslavia broke up, .yu registrants could keep
| theirs, they weren't forced to surrender.
|
| Edit: And a union of nation states is not like a golf
| club. You cannot reduce the argument by analogy to a
| sports club membership. A political union is much more
| complex than that.
|
| Citizenship, free movement etc., or course those could
| not continue after Brexit. Those are politically
| fundamental.
|
| But when it comes to internet's DNS system, people have
| lives and businesses that are contingent on maintining
| exclusive control of a given set of characters on a DNS
| server. Basic security of the internet is built around
| the expectation of being able to maintain indefinite
| control of a domain.
|
| Sure, the EU rules said domain owners must reside in
| EU/EEA but I expect that the possibility of a country
| leaving EU was not considered when that rule was written
| (certainly, I did not consider it at the time I
| registered the domain). It would be prudent and
| reasonable to revisit those rules in light of such a
| significant and unexpexted event as Brexit and the
| significant problems it would cause to affected existing
| .eu domain registrants. But no, this was simply
| impossible -- rules are rules! /s
|
| Edit 2: Indeed, the EU _did_ rewrite the rules. Because
| EU citizens remaining residing in the UK would also lose
| their registrations, the EU rewrote to rules to allow
| citizenship as well as residence to be a qualification
| for domain registration. So the argument that the rules
| were fixed in stone and known by everyone, and so should
| not be changed, does not hold water either. The EU _did_
| change the rules to account for Brexit. But chose to do
| harm to existing domain registrants from the UK anyway
| for no apparent benefit to anyone.
| dijit wrote:
| If I look at the differences between what cite as
| precedent and the UK/EU situation it's that the EU
| continues functioning whereas Yugoslavia and Soviet Union
| did not.
|
| Maybe more impetuous to protect EU institutions from
| impersonation? Not sure.
| WindyMiller wrote:
| > I don't buy that argument. A UK citizen can still
| register .eu TLD through a company they control in the
| EU, if they have the resources to do so. The EU's
| decision to rescind registrations for former EU citizens
| only really affects non-wealthy private citizens. The
| wealthy, and large companies, can get around the rule.
|
| Regrettably, this is true of most rules.
|
| > But when it comes to internet's DNS system, people have
| lives and businesses that are contingent on maintining
| exclusive control of a given set of characters on a DNS
| server.
|
| People had lives and businesses that were contingent on a
| great many things that were lost to Brexit.
|
| It seems like maybe you think of the TLD problem as a
| special case because it affected you so directly and
| significantly and is within your area of expertise. (I
| don't mean this as a criticism, it's completely normal
| and I've no doubt I would do the same.) But really I
| don't think it's particularly different from all of the
| other administrative problems that Brexit created.
| Symbiote wrote:
| > But when it comes to internet's DNS system, people have
| lives and businesses
|
| Seriously?
|
| People had lives and businesses reliant on the UK being a
| member of the EU -- there were hundreds of stories of
| people who were spending lots of time in the EU caring
| for relatives, or running their business, but not enough
| time to claim residence in the EU.
|
| That all got thrown under the bus by the Tories, the
| domain names is a minor detail in comparison.
|
| (Note the .yu domain was removed in 2010 after a 3 year
| transition period, but for some reason .su remains.)
| razakel wrote:
| .uk is not actually a ccTLD - the country code is really gb.
| .gb is delegated, but unused.
| dijit wrote:
| Oh wow, really? That's insane and such an absurd oversight.
|
| Given that the government literally uses gov.uk and ac.uk
| for academic institutions.
|
| EDIT: seems one of us is wrong;
|
| > .uk is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD)
| for the United Kingdom. It was first registered in July
| 1985, seven months after the original generic top-level
| domains such as .com and the first country code after .us.
| razakel wrote:
| It's in a weird state where it was manually delegated
| before the ISO-based ones were created. So it's not
| actually a ccTLD, but is treated as one.
| samatman wrote:
| This is not correct. `.uk` is a ccTLD, and it isn't the
| ISO 3166 code for the UK, which is `gb`.
|
| These are two different systems with substantial overlap.
| gpvos wrote:
| Assuming this is because of Brexit, it was the UK that decided
| that, so you should thank them. The rule that the domain is
| EU/EEA-only already existed and was clear.
| nicky0 wrote:
| Well, I'm a citizen of the UK and I voted in the referendum
| to stay in the EU.
|
| The EU could have agreed to change its TLD ownershipo rules
| rules (which they actually have done recently, so the rules
| are not set in stone) to introduce a grandfathering-in
| provision if they had wanted to. Close it for new
| registrations but allow existing resistratnts to continue to
| renew.
|
| But it seems they chose to be dicks about it, perhaps to
| spite the UK I guess. Maybe to send a warning to other
| truculent EU countries. I can't say I understand their
| reasoning. Perhaps just petty bureaucracy at work.
|
| But now that the precedent is set, other EU citizens should
| be very wary of using .eu domains. There's no guarantee that
| your country will remain in the EU forever either.
| ithkuil wrote:
| Doing that for spite is a very short-sighted thing indeed.
|
| I think Hanlon's razor offers a better explanation
| blibble wrote:
| it was spite: the EU Commission explicitly said it wanted
| those domains cancelled and that the rules would not be
| changed
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > But it seems they chose to be dicks about it, perhaps to
| spite the UK I guess. Maybe to send a warning to other
| truculent EU countries.
|
| Well, of course the EU chose to be dicks about it - the
| various UK governments did all their best to ensure an as-
| chaotic-as-possible Brexit, constantly derailing
| discussions, even risking setting the Northern Ireland
| civil war alight again and demand that the EU concede to
| prevent that.
|
| It was dumb enough that Brexit happened in the first place
| (some say, the vote was close enough that Russian
| propaganda made the key difference), but the way that
| Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and now Sunak have handled
| Brexit made an already bad situation _even worse_. Had they
| shown even the slightest bit of respect and solution-
| oriented thinking towards the EU, the EU negotiators would
| have been far more interested in solutions that don 't mess
| up stuff too much.
| alibarber wrote:
| Yes but... Some current EU states have not exactly
| covered themselves in glory whilst their elected
| governments have rode roughshod over some of the EU's
| most fundamental principles, and what sanctions have
| their citizens faced?
|
| I'm not proud of the UK when it comes to Brexit, but I
| can't take the whole 'follow the rules of the club / stay
| in it to enjoy the benefits' seriously anymore.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| I assume you're referring to pre-Tusk Poland and Hungary?
| If yes, I agree with you... the key problem is that the
| EU has been founded on the implicit assumption that its
| members would follow the law and if they wouldn't they
| would at least follow the courts. That held up for a long
| time, and then populism took over, but by the time that
| was realized there were too many countries in the EU to
| ever get consensus to truly fix this issue.
|
| American politics suffer from the same issue IMHO, their
| system can't cope with the Republicans being willfully
| obstructionist for decades now.
| alibarber wrote:
| Indeed - and so this explains why I roll my eyes at silly
| comments along the lines as 'they [Brits] voted for it,
| let them stand in a queue at the airport or lose their
| .eu domains'.
|
| It would seem to be more equitable to me a least (someone
| who voted remain and lives in the EU) if the ballot had
| presented the options of "Remain" or "Remain and ignore
| all of the rules". But I don't think that would be
| particularly popular with the rest of the EU populace,
| and yet, effectively, it's what's happening.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Indeed - and so this explains why I roll my eyes at
| silly comments along the lines as 'they [Brits] voted for
| it, let them stand in a queue at the airport or lose
| their .eu domains'.
|
| For me, the most sad thing to see was that despite all of
| these issues and the utterly insane blunders of the last
| years that weren't even related to Brexit or Covid, the
| Tories are still in charge...
| alibarber wrote:
| I have a slightly controversial opinion on this in that I
| apportion quite a lot of the blame onto Labour at the
| time too - pre Johnson (i.e. the Corbyn years) what
| effective opposition was there? Why did they then perform
| so utterly poorly in the election? It's one thing to be
| popular with a vocal segment of enthusiasts, but
| unfortunately they only count votes.
|
| And yes, first past the post and all that, but there was
| still an incredibly clear swing on the popular vote (-8%)
| away from them.
| nicky0 wrote:
| Well we haven't actually had an election since 2019
| autoexec wrote:
| I don't think it's fair to expect the EU to bend over
| backwards to accommodate the defectors after how they
| behaved. The UK knew what would happen and they choose that
| path anyway throwing a large number of UK citizens under
| the bus. It's unfortunate that they made that choice, but
| it's not the fault of the EU and it's not the EU's
| responsibility.
|
| It also seems a bit unfair to suggest that .eu domains
| aren't dependable as if the same thing could happen without
| warning to any member country considering that the
| precedent established is that it would only happen to
| countries that insist on it happening to them.
| razakel wrote:
| >The UK knew what would happen and they choose that path
| anyway throwing a large number of UK citizens under the
| bus.
|
| The _politicians_ definitely all know it wouid be a
| disaster - Gove and Johnson 's faces on the day of the
| result look like they're at a funeral.
|
| The _public_ , however, insisted that "we knew what we
| was voting for", verbally abusing anyone who asked them
| what that actually was, and now are claiming that "this
| isn't what we voted for". Well, it was, and you were told
| so. Let me play the world's smallest violin in sympathy.
| nicky0 wrote:
| > The public
|
| 51.8% of the voting public
| lynx23 wrote:
| > Well, I'm a citizen of the UK and I voted in the
| referendum to stay in the EU.
|
| Welcome to democracy.
|
| As an EU citizen, I am against allowing leaving countries
| to keep their priviledges. Either in or out. But this kind
| of whining from the no-brexit fraction is really pathetic.
| midasuni wrote:
| OPs citizenship was removed from him without his approval,
| based on the minority votes of U.K. and foreigners living in
| the U.K., it is a travesty.
| autoexec wrote:
| That is a travesty, but still the UK's fault for allowing
| it to happen in the first place not the EU's
| Macha wrote:
| See also the periodic complaints about UK tourists being
| discriminated against in airports for having the slower
| non-EU line.
| nicky0 wrote:
| Only idiots would compain about passport control queues.
| It's nothing like the .eu domain issue at all. A costless
| administrative accomodation could easily have been made.
| vdaea wrote:
| If you can't be arsed to vote it's because you don't care
| about the outcome.
| palata wrote:
| The OP may have voted and been in the minority.
| WindyMiller wrote:
| If this happened because you're in the UK, it's not the EU's
| fault we left and you're blaming the wrong people.
| nicky0 wrote:
| Let's not get into Brexit mud-slinging. I simply contend that
| EU could have made a more reasonable accomodation for
| existing UK holders of .eu domains.
| WindyMiller wrote:
| I think it's perfectly reasonable not to offer the UK
| special treatment over other nations. It would certainly
| have been more _generous_ to allow UK registrants to retain
| their domains, but it doesn 't seem to me more reasonable.
| The EU's responsibility is to its members, and they
| negotiated the withdrawal agreement accordingly.
|
| The UK could, of course, have made access to the .eu TLD a
| higher priority when negotiating the withdrawal agreement.
| I expect we could have secured it. I don't see any reason
| to believe that the EU witheld it unreasonably.
|
| I don't think it's mud-slinging to point out that the EU
| didn't kick us out!
| lynx23 wrote:
| Could have, but shouldn't.
| midasuni wrote:
| The RU did not have to remove the citizenship from millions
| of people who were born EU citizens and had no say in the
| minority decision to leave the EU
| lupusreal wrote:
| I'm sure Russia did no such thing!
| WindyMiller wrote:
| It doesn't have to withold citizenship from anyone. In some
| ways it's more reasonable that I lost my EU citizenship
| through a democratic process in my country than that, say,
| a Turkish person doesn't have EU citizenship because the
| process of joining has taken so long.
|
| I'd like to still be an EU citizen but I don't see how it's
| the EU's fault that I'm not.
| palata wrote:
| > but I still contend that the EU could have made an
| accomodation for existing registrants to hold onto their
| domains
|
| Sure, and I completely understand your position. But... well
| many other UK citizen had at least some inconvenience resulting
| from the Brexit. Should the EU have gone out of their way to
| accommodate everyone from the country that essentially said "I
| don't care about the EU anymore"?
|
| If you could leave the EU, keep all the benefits of being in
| the EU and get all the benefits of not being in the EU all at
| the same time, then there would be no EU. So yeah... you can't
| have it all :-).
|
| Good reminder that personal domains should not be chosen as
| `.eu` though.
| xg15 wrote:
| The abstraction layer the internet is implementing on top of
| geography is proving increasingly leaky these days.
|
| I think the irony in this incident is that it might actually
| strengthen the original purpose of ccTLDs, as namespaces for
| domains within a particular country. Because it shows that, no
| matter what your domain vendor or even the country's registrar
| tells you the domain is ultimately controlled by the country's
| government and is therefore subject to the whims and fate of that
| country.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| The concept of the domain on today's internet is a bit
| anachronistic on the internet these days. People just want to
| get "places" on the internet, not to addresses.
| autoexec wrote:
| What is the alternative? IP addresses? AOL Keywords?
| Abstracting away the whole thing and forcing people to only
| connect to your webserver via a mobile app?
|
| Domains are still the best thing anyone has managed to come
| up with. We just need better administration of them since
| ICANN sold out.
| Palomides wrote:
| most people with a laptop/desktop will type "facebook" into
| the address bar of their browser, which will do a search in
| whatever search engine was provided as the default, then
| click on the first link
|
| they have little to no conception of what a TLD is
|
| actually, most people use an app on their phone for
| everything and avoid the web browser
|
| I don't say this to insult the average person, this is
| simply what I see non-engineers do
| kalkr wrote:
| https://www.gnunet.org/en/gns.html
| et-al wrote:
| SEO, unfortunately.
|
| As Palomides mentioned, most people just search for a
| website they will go to instead of typing in whatever cute
| domain you've crafted.
| usrbinbash wrote:
| Sorry, but that reads a lot like "not invented here".
|
| You do realize that domains were invented so people could get
| to "places" instead of addresses, right?
|
| So pray tell, what would you replace domains with? And what
| advantage would your schema have over what exists now?
|
| Because, the addresses don't go away. Underneath whatever you
| come up with, will always be an IP address, and has to be,
| because you need a way to route packets.
|
| So whatever you want to replace domains with, has o solve the
| exact same problem: Wrap IP addresses in a nice, human
| friendly, hierarchically organized schema, that is easy to
| read, remember and type.
| samatman wrote:
| Hierarchically organized is not a hard requirement. A
| domain _could_ consist of nothing more than a unique
| Unicode string with no '/' or ' ' in it. It might do well
| to require a '.' be present, but even that isn't necessary.
|
| I'm quite content with what we have, however. A "unique
| string domain" regime has to pick between an anarchic
| landscape of independent registrars playing whack-a-mole
| with sniping and squatting, or a single central source of
| truth, neither of those strikes me as ideal. I don't think
| routing would actually be an issue though, given the power
| of today's servers and good algorithms for hashmaps in the
| many millions of keys.
| palata wrote:
| I don't think it is common to use `.us` in the US, but many
| other countries use their ccTLD a lot more. I personally
| don't like it when companies hack them (typically with `.io`
| or `.ai`), because I am used to assign a meaning to the
| ccTLDs.
|
| My point being that while it may feel anachronistic in the US
| these days, think that there are many countries that are not
| the US :-).
| pedrovhb wrote:
| Imagine if one day we come up with a technology that allows
| resolving _arbitrary strings_ and doesn't cost multiple times the
| cost of the hosting structure itself.
| diggan wrote:
| We have that technology already, it's called DNS. Everything
| else is people/organization problems, that won't be solved by
| adding more technology to the fire.
| lynx23 wrote:
| Abusing ccTLDs for things which are not relevant to the
| particular country just because they TLD sounds or reads cool is
| where the problem began. .cc, .rs, just to name some.
|
| I know it has become out of fashion these days, but countries
| have sovereignty. If the registrar thinks they want to decline a
| particular subdomain, thats their call. And all international
| activists can go to hell.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| I get the impression that .com is safer than .bananas or
| whatever. Is this true? I would settle for a not so good .com for
| the safety.
| Ayesh wrote:
| .com is run by Verizon, and .bananas will be by another for-
| profit company (most likely Donuts).
|
| If the .com prices were to be increased, there will be a huge
| backlash. As for .bananas, not so much.
|
| .bananas might get blocked at TLD level, .com unlikely so.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| Verisign administers .com and .net domains.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verisign
| pitaj wrote:
| I imagine it was an auto-correct typo.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Never knew about Reston, interesting little city.
| Macha wrote:
| There is an agreement for .com and .org (and formerly .net, but
| not anymore) that registry price increases are capped at 10% a
| year, and they aren't allowed designate in demand domains as
| more expensive premium domains. There was an attempt by the
| .org operators to renegotiate that, but it was stopped by
| public pressure.
| userbinator wrote:
| I tend to subconsciously skip over "weird" TLD sites in search
| results as they are usually SEO spam.
| Kognito wrote:
| The article goes on about how this is "bigotry" by the Afghan
| authorities for suspending queer.af yet doesn't bother to
| consider whether any other domains were affected. Saw at least
| one other report yesterday and I suspect it's not the only one:
|
| https://x.com/wesbos/status/1757418308050079762
| olivierduval wrote:
| Actually, ccTLD might be a VERY GOOD thing: if I buy something
| from a ".com" website, it can be from anywhere in the world...
| and I would have no recourse in case of scam.
|
| On the other side: if I buy something from my own country, I know
| that the law will protect me because the TLD tell me that the
| vendor has at least a company in my country, subject to my
| country laws
| organsnyder wrote:
| Relying on a site's TLD to verify a company's location is
| rarely (never?) a good idea.
| razakel wrote:
| What exactly is stopping me from registering a company at a PO
| box, creating myfakeshop.yourcountry, taking your money, and
| disappearing?
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| ccTLDs are controlled by an authority that IANA decides and IANA
| is controlled by the Govt of USA. So we know eventually who
| controls the domains. So maybe we come to 'all TLDs are actually
| created equal', eventually. (my point is - in the end USA
| controls all the domains, maybe via ICANN/IANA.)
| vdaea wrote:
| >After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Ukranian Vice
| Prime Minister asked ICANN to suspend ccTLDs associated with
| Russia.
|
| What's the point of ccTLDs if the US, a potential enemy, can
| still pull the rug out from under your feet?
| Macha wrote:
| Here's what happens if it goes ahead. Russia (and allied
| countries) ISPs update their config to point to root servers
| that do resolve .ru and .su, and they can then fallback to the
| usual servers for the rest of the world. And hey, maybe now
| they have that infra, they decide that in Russia,
| whitehouse.gov points somewhere else now
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| They expect that the US won't do that because it would violate
| Americans' expectations about good and evil.
| lpribis wrote:
| Sure, the US has never done _anything_ that violates
| expectations about good and evil.
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| Of course they have. But in Western countries governments
| still need to sell their position to the public or it will
| typically cost them an election. So, typically, it's safe
| to expect on simple issues like letting Libya keep their
| ccTLD that they won't bother. The article gave another
| example about Ukraine where, as expected, they didn't
| bother.
| kube-system wrote:
| Anybody can ask anyone to suspend a ccTLD. Doesn't mean they're
| going to do it.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Will we ever live in a time where TLD conventions are abandoned
| entirely and websites just use a hashtag or something?
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| This is a solved problem. AFAIK there are not one, but multiple
| solutions for performant global routing without centralization.
| DHTs are an example.
| acheron wrote:
| Yes, that time was 1996-2002 or so, and they were called "AOL
| keywords".
| palata wrote:
| There is no need; the current system works. Just don't register
| your domain in Afghanistan if you don't want to depend on...
| Afghanistan.
| nottorp wrote:
| > While ICANN kinda-sorta has something to do with ccTLDs (in the
| sense that it makes them exist on the Internet), it has no
| authority to control how a ccTLD is managed.
|
| Right, like ICANN's .com and other traditional domains are
| managed fairly and can be trusted :)
|
| Isn't it .com domains that are generally easily taken hostage by
| cybersquatters because of dubious rules and lowest cost possible
| administration?
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| Presstv.com is a domain siezed by US government that belongs to a
| foreign news agency (based out of iran)
|
| This means that the .com TLD is at the whims of US govt, just
| like .AF is at the whims of afghan govt.
|
| If you are at the mercy of US govt for .com you should be at the
| mercy of afghan govt as well for their cctld.
|
| What's the problem here?
| pimlottc wrote:
| > Unfortunately, ccTLD registries have a disconcerting habit of
| changing their minds on whether they serve their geographic
| locality, such as when auDA decided to declare an open season in
| the .au namespace some years ago.
|
| I think this is referring to these licensing rules changes
| effective April 2021:
|
| https://www.auda.org.au/au-domain-names/policies-and-complia...
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Related recent piece of this discussion:
|
| _Queer.af Mastodon instance has been shut down by the Taliban_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39348923
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| And one about the flipside/money side of things that was
| omitted from the OP:
|
| _.ai website registrations are a windfall for tiny Anguilla_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39194477
| tomoyoirl wrote:
| Disappointed to see no mention yet of Tuvalu, the tiny low-lying
| island nation (imperiled by global warming etc) where something
| like 10% of the government income is funded by sales of .tv
| domains, which is just such an interesting case.
| gggmaster wrote:
| As if there are guarantees that gTLDs won't be sold to shady
| entities.
| DanAtC wrote:
| Never forget a resident of Christmas Island was able to bring
| down the most infamous .cx domain with a single complaint.
| ceeam wrote:
| > I don't think any gTLD operator will be invading a neighbouring
| country any time soon.
|
| I would guess people in Yemen (most recently) would find this
| statement somewhat funny.
| bitwize wrote:
| I think we should petition ICANN for a .asfuck TLD, so the
| queer.af people have somewhere to go to that's less politically
| fraught.
| teddyh wrote:
| Summary: Many countries are bad. Therefore, avoid them all.
| tempestn wrote:
| One other thing I'd note is to avoid using the new gTLDs like
| .email or .mail for an email address. I tried it and discovered
| just how many bad form validators and spam filters there are out
| there.
| paulnpace wrote:
| What year did you experiment with that? I know of one person
| currently using .email TLD and hasn't reported issues.
|
| I started using .guru not long after it launched and definitely
| experienced the issues you describe, including my residential
| ISP not being able to resolve.
| tempestn wrote:
| I switched away from it in 2021. Certainly _most_ websites
| handled it fine, and _most_ of my email went through. But in
| both cases, there were notable exceptions compared to using a
| .com domain.
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