[HN Gopher] Zoom outage caused by accidental 'shutting down' of ...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Zoom outage caused by accidental 'shutting down' of the zoom.us
       domain
        
       Author : RVRX
       Score  : 587 points
       Date   : 2025-04-17 00:55 UTC (22 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (status.zoom.us)
 (TXT) w3m dump (status.zoom.us)
        
       | RVRX wrote:
       | "This block was the result of a communication error between
       | Zoom's domain registrar, Markmonitor, and GoDaddy Registry, which
       | resulted in GoDaddy Registry mistakenly shutting down zoom.us
       | domain. "
        
         | LinuxBender wrote:
         | Something is fishy about this. A communication error would not
         | result in a domain being placed on hold. On hold is usually the
         | result of a legal order or in the case of the .us TLD a nexus
         | compliance violation. I've transferred thousands of domains
         | from assorted dodgy registrars into MarkMonitor and can not
         | even imagine a scenario where a miscommunication results in a
         | domain being placed on hold.
        
           | jltsiren wrote:
           | Correctness doesn't scale. If something has six nines of
           | reliability, you'll probably never see the one-in-million
           | outlier yourself. But if the other side deals with a million
           | requests a month, they are a common occurrence.
        
             | LinuxBender wrote:
             | Yeah I'm not saying errors don't happen. I've been called
             | into gazillions of them including many that _" should not
             | happen"_. Those make for the best root cause analysis and
             | after action reports.
             | 
             | Rather this does not sound like a communication error
             | unless they are leaving out a lot of critical details and
             | context or the domain management interface has been de-
             | frictioned and dumbed down too much.
        
           | pigbearpig wrote:
           | Could it have been something as simple as "hey, zoonn.us is
           | violating Zoom's copyright, please block it" and then someone
           | typos "zoom.us".
        
       | megamike wrote:
       | oops rolls eyes
        
       | system2 wrote:
       | Someone in the Zoom company management forgot to update the
       | billing credit card for that domain, I bet you $1000. Happens all
       | the time with our clients.
        
         | adrr wrote:
         | They don't use normal registrations. Anyone with any size is
         | using MarkMonitor and do monthly billing and have a dedicated
         | person. No credit cards.
        
       | be_erik wrote:
       | I was really hoping to find out they were hosting their DNS on
       | GoDaddy. I still want it to be true.
        
         | johncolanduoni wrote:
         | If only it were so, then they would have kind of deserved it.
         | TIL GoDaddy wormed it's way into administering the .us TLD on
         | behalf of the federal government.
        
           | jsheard wrote:
           | That makes two reasons to avoid .us domains, the other being
           | that you're not allowed to redact the WHOIS information on
           | those.
        
             | neodymiumphish wrote:
             | This shafted me hard when I registered the domain I used to
             | research and write a company blog post
             | (https://www.guidepointsecurity.com/blog/tunnel-vision-
             | cloudf...).
             | 
             | I'll never deal with a .us domain again, even if it means
             | missing out on a good text string.
        
           | riffic wrote:
           | wormed it is
        
         | johnklos wrote:
         | GoDaddy is the registrar. They (Zoom) host their DNS using
         | Amazon.
        
       | LeoPanthera wrote:
       | Amazing how many service outages are caused by doing business
       | with GoDaddy.
        
         | lucb1e wrote:
         | Also after dividing the number of outages by the number of
         | customers?
         | 
         | I'm not a customer (wouldn't buy my domain overseas) and have
         | no solid opinion on GoDaddy besides that I hate the name. I
         | hear the horror stories also. I'm just wondering if this is a
         | knee-jerk reaction
        
           | hypercube33 wrote:
           | I've used about 12 registrar's and dns providers and they are
           | trash top to bottom - literally the worst and most difficult
           | to do everything from basic setup to how they do things just
           | plain weird compared to other hosting providers. They also
           | aren't the cheapest option so other than brand recognition I
           | don't get why people use them.
        
             | kstrauser wrote:
             | Let's not get carried away.
             | 
             | Network Solutions still exists.
        
           | hinkley wrote:
           | Here's something you all need to learn about site (or for
           | that matter, tool) reliability:
           | 
           | Nobody gives a shit about how many good outcomes between
           | incidents there are. They care about how many good hours
           | happen between incidents, and they care how big the incidents
           | are.
           | 
           | So if you make a tool that your coworkers use 5 times as much
           | as the old process, that tool better make things at least 6x
           | more stable or people will start talking about how the
           | process fails 'all the time'.
           | 
           | "all the time", as near as I've been able to figure out,
           | after people have been yelling at me, my team, or a team I'm
           | privy to, is not "every day". No, all the time just means
           | that it happens every couple of weeks and one time happened
           | twice in one day, twice in consecutive days, or with two
           | customers in rapid succession. Usually the day they're
           | screaming about.
           | 
           | So if you're doing that thing every day all day long, where
           | you used to do it rarely, but you made some progress on
           | making it more frequent, nobody cares that it's every 100th
           | run that fails, when it used to be every 10th. They just see
           | the drama has gotten more frequent (and nowhere near as
           | frequent as their narrative says, but you've already lost
           | that argument)
        
         | toast0 wrote:
         | Sure, but probably when zoom got the zoom.us domain, Neustar
         | was running the .us registry. Godaddy acquired Neustar's
         | registry business in 2020 when everyone was busy looking at
         | other things.
        
       | RVRX wrote:
       | The domain status on the whois record was "serverHold" earlier in
       | the day
        
       | autoexec wrote:
       | Markmonitor and zoom are both terrible companies so I can't feel
       | bad about this
        
         | __float wrote:
         | What's wrong with Markmonitor? They don't have nearly the
         | customer base of Zoom (where I can relate to any complaints,
         | I'm sure)
        
           | autoexec wrote:
           | They've earned themselves a reputation for sending false DMCA
           | notices.
           | 
           | https://www.inquisitr.com/markmonitor-sends-false-
           | copyright-...
           | 
           | https://torrentfreak.com/record-labels-defeat-false-dmca-
           | tak...
           | 
           | https://torrentfreak.com/court-dismisses-charters-claims-
           | of-...
           | 
           | https://torrentfreak.com/hbo-wants-google-to-censor-hbo-
           | com-...
           | 
           | https://torrentfreak.com/after-4-years-copyright-holders-
           | sti...
           | 
           | They haven't even always been good to their own clients:
           | https://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-lawfirm-defrauded-
           | right...
        
             | voxic11 wrote:
             | Can you explain what that last article has to do with
             | MarkMonitor? To me it just sounds like MarkMonitor once
             | bought a company from a law firm which was sued for fraud 5
             | years after the sale was completed. So it doesn't appear
             | that MarkMonitor was in any way related to the fraud which
             | occurred.
        
               | autoexec wrote:
               | Good call out! If Schluter didn't continue doing work for
               | DtecNet after the sale to MarkMonitor then we can't
               | really blame MarkMonitor for the things he was doing 5
               | years later.
        
         | nickvec wrote:
         | Curious what your rationale is for Zoom being a terrible
         | company? I don't disagree.
        
           | autoexec wrote:
           | I decided zoom was a bad company very early for security and
           | privacy reasons
           | 
           | https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/8/20687014/zoom-security-
           | fla...
           | 
           | https://citizenlab.ca/2020/04/move-fast-roll-your-own-
           | crypto...
           | 
           | The endless stream of news on privacy problems and
           | vulnerabilities that have come to light since then have only
           | made me feel better about that initial opinion.
           | 
           | https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/08/zoom-data-mining-for-ai-
           | te...
           | 
           | https://www.tomsguide.com/news/zoom-security-privacy-woes
           | 
           | https://cybersecuritynews.com/zoom-app-vulnerability/
           | 
           | https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/15/zoom_privilege_escala.
           | ..
           | 
           | https://gbhackers.com/zoom-security-update-patches-
           | multiple-...
           | 
           | https://thecyberexpress.com/multiple-zoom-vulnerabilities-
           | de...
        
         | johnisgood wrote:
         | Since parent (autoexec) has provided links to all of these
         | claims, do not let it go to the down-vote hell and disappear.
         | 
         | Why Markmonitor is terrible:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43712299
         | 
         | Why Zoom is terrible:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43712438
         | 
         | If you think it is not enough to call them terrible, reply to
         | these comments as to why not.
        
       | ajdude wrote:
       | A few years ago I had a .us TLD. I eventually decided that I
       | probably shouldn't be reliant on a country code for my domain,
       | it's the same reason why I don't use .io
       | 
       | I'm not saying that this couldn't have happened with a gTLD But
       | why put your brand at the mercy of a government like that?
        
         | jsheard wrote:
         | > it's the same reason why I don't use .io
         | 
         | Dodged a bullet there given that .io is at risk of being
         | discontinued altogether. It hasn't been decided yet, but better
         | to not have that dangling over your head.
        
           | eli wrote:
           | I don't think that's a real risk
        
             | jsheard wrote:
             | It wouldn't be the first time a ccTLD has been retired
             | after its country ceased to be, though it would be the most
             | disruptive given how popular it is, hence the uncertainty
             | as to what they'll do this time.
        
               | sgarland wrote:
               | If I were Mauritius, I would be hitting tech companies
               | left and right to secure a permanent income stream.
               | 
               | You guys want to kick indigenous people off their land
               | for military bases? Enjoy your new bill for .io domains.
        
               | barry-cotter wrote:
               | The Chagossians are not by any meaningful standards
               | indigenous. The land was uninhabited when George
               | Washington was rebelling against the British. If the
               | Chagossians are indigenous so are old stock white
               | Americans.
               | 
               | And Mauritius have treated the Chagossians like dirt for
               | decades, with no signs of that changing.
               | 
               | None of this is to deny the Chagossians were extremely
               | ill treated by the British, but the idea that the
               | Mauritanians have any interest in the welfare of the
               | Chagossians is ridiculous.
        
               | Y_Y wrote:
               | I have some sympathy for your position, but I'll add that
               | the prevailing moral opinion seems to be "whoever got
               | there first is the rightful owner". Of course you have to
               | allow for armchair ethnologists not being particularly
               | good at distinguishing between similar groups and later
               | revisionism.
               | 
               | A lot of Pacific islands territories have complicated
               | histories like this (e.g. Hawaii, New Zealand), but the
               | focus usually ends up on whatever bastards most recently
               | took over from the previous bastards (relative levels of
               | bastardy notwithstanding).
        
               | Sunspark wrote:
               | Absolutely. For example, the Maoris are not the original
               | indigenous. What happened to them you may ask? They
               | became literal dinner for the Maoris. This has happened
               | elsewhere too. True original indigenous are rare.
               | 
               | The thing with the island of Diego Garcia is quite
               | strange and I strongly suspect there is corruption
               | involved. The UK wishes to divest itself? Instead of
               | holding an auction where the rest of the planet can bid
               | on purchasing the territory, the UK decided that
               | Mauritius would take it (who doesn't really want it) and
               | to entice them, the UK is going to PAY Mauritius to take
               | the territory and leave the base alone. The amount is
               | PS90 million annually, adjusted for inflation for 99
               | years.
               | 
               | This is a lot of money, why not just NOT turn it over and
               | not have to give away PS90 million a year for a century?
               | So, it begs the question.. is someone from the UK side
               | benefiting from this no-bid deal?
               | 
               | Give the island to me, and I won't charge the UK to have
               | the base.
        
               | bigstrat2003 wrote:
               | Hopefully that doesn't happen as not everyone who uses a
               | .io is a tech company. I've been using a .io domain for
               | my personal email for something like a decade now, when I
               | just thought "oh that's a cool TLD" and had no idea it
               | was even a country TLD. I don't much relish the idea of
               | getting soaked for money to stick it to the man when I
               | haven't done anything morally wrong.
        
               | seszett wrote:
               | That territory is not going to "cease to be", it's just
               | going to change hands. The uncertainty was entirely
               | created as an easy way to get views.
        
           | xp84 wrote:
           | You can bet it wouldn't be actually discontinued, but you can
           | bet when/if the UK gives away the island to Mauritius or
           | whatever, they'll lease the rights to the highest bidder, and
           | those people will be free to extort everyone with a valuable
           | .io domain.
        
           | j45 wrote:
           | This news to me, thanks for sharing.
        
           | ryan29 wrote:
           | It's going to be interesting to see what they do. One of the
           | core arguments when claiming the domain industry enjoys a
           | competitive market is that switching costs are bearable and
           | that switching TLDs is an option if registries increase
           | prices too much.
           | 
           | So ICANN has a non-trivial choice to make. Either they
           | maintain the position that switching costs are bearable and
           | let .io disappear, or they admit that TLD switching is
           | impossible and save .io, which will make it hard to argue the
           | threat of (registrants) TLD switching keeps the industry
           | competitive.
        
         | lucb1e wrote:
         | What TLD is not subject to a country's laws? .aq? .su?
         | 
         | Edit: .eu might be an even better candidate for this
         | requirement, but you can ask British former domain owners how
         | that worked out
         | 
         | gTLDs just subject you to an _additional_ layer of
         | incompetence, namely from the company running it. The
         | government where they 're located can still come knocking. It's
         | also not like e.g. .nl is run by the Dutch government
         | officials, it's a nonprofit started by some people in the 80s
         | iirc
        
           | bongodongobob wrote:
           | It's the specific country being referenced, I think.
        
             | swores wrote:
             | They wrote that they were talking about country code TLDs
             | vs not, not about US vs. other countries. (Which is what I
             | would've said too, it's a more general point than thinking
             | about anything specific to one country.)
             | 
             | Ironically that one country happens to be the one that also
             | controls gTLDs like .com, as others have pointed out, so
             | arguably .us is the one ccTLD that isn't any more or less
             | likely to be reliable.
        
           | numpad0 wrote:
           | Presumably the idea is that fabricating a legal offense to
           | shut down a ccTLD would be easier than it would be for
           | regular TLDs.
           | 
           | I don't know if that's actually the case, I've heard some
           | shady sites are using .su(Soviet Union) to avoid judicial
           | actions.
        
           | belorn wrote:
           | gTLDs are regulated by ICANN. As much as an organization can
           | achieve to be a global multistakeholder group, at least the
           | intention is to be global.
           | 
           | ICANN have a mostly hand-off approach to ccTDLs. The
           | intention is that each country decide on their own
           | regulations and management when it comes to their country
           | code specific domains.
           | 
           | .nl is a very special case, and it is true that the Dutch
           | government was not involved. .nl was the first country code
           | TLD created outside of the US, when the domain system still
           | was part of ARPANET and operated by the United States
           | Department of Defense. .nl was then transferred to a
           | foundation 10 years later, and that's where ownership now
           | resides.
           | 
           | ccTLDs are somewhat of a mess. Many are created in
           | universities, then transferred to a company or foundation.
           | Others were sold to companies from the start. In some cases,
           | government have sold their ccTLD to other countries.
           | 
           | .se for example was created in a Swedish university, and then
           | later the government took possession of it (or the university
           | gave it to them, can't really say). Now there are laws that
           | explicitly defines how it should be used and governed, which
           | then a non-profit foundation manage the implementation.
        
           | agwa wrote:
           | > _gTLDs just subject you to an additional layer of
           | incompetence, namely from the company running it._
           | 
           | ccTLDs also have to be run by some organization, which is
           | often a private company. Maybe the country's oversight over
           | this organization is better than ICANN's oversight over gTLD
           | operators. Maybe it's not. Historically, the worst technical
           | incidents have occurred at ccTLDs.
        
         | VWWHFSfQ wrote:
         | > But why put your brand at the mercy of a government like
         | that?
         | 
         | Literally every single TLD is administered by a government.
         | 
         | .com itself is under jurisdiction of USA and operated by
         | Verisign
        
           | AStonesThrow wrote:
           | > Literally every single TLD is administered by a government.
           | 
           | False. I'm not sure what you're trying to assert, but
           | governments don't necessarily need to control/admin gTLDs,
           | and as far as ccTLDs go, they're under jurisdiction of the
           | corresponding nation, usually, but they're going to be
           | "administered" by a tech company that holds a contract.
           | 
           | Anyway, ".com" does indeed answer to U.S. jurisdiction,
           | despite being technically a gTLD, but registrations are not
           | restricted to US-based entities. The main things that keep
           | ".com" associated with the USA include the history/legacy of
           | this quintessential "original" domain, as well as a general
           | support from major countries that provide a "second-level"
           | commercial domain, such as ".co.uk".
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.com
        
             | nottorp wrote:
             | > ".com" does indeed answer to U.S. jurisdiction
             | 
             | ... which is a problem lately ... and may have been even in
             | the past for some niches ...
        
           | johnisgood wrote:
           | What about .name?
        
             | areyourllySorry wrote:
             | also verisign. https://icannwiki.org/.name
        
           | ryan29 wrote:
           | > .com itself is under jurisdiction of USA and operated by
           | Verisign
           | 
           | Barely. The NTIA gave up all their leverage over .com in
           | 2018. The only thing the US can do at this point is let the
           | cooperative agreement auto-renew to limit price increases.
           | 
           | I wouldn't be surprised if the US withdrew from the agreement
           | altogether at this point. Then .com would fall under the
           | joint control of ICANN and Verisign.
        
         | omcnoe wrote:
         | Zoom are already at the mercy of the government by virtue of
         | being incorporated in the US, and having the majority of their
         | staff there. "Generic" TLD's like .com come under US purview
         | also anyway.
        
           | deepsun wrote:
           | .us is more special, e.g. the owner should be a US entity,
           | and must be public (Private Domain functionality is disabled
           | for .us).
        
         | SkyeCA wrote:
         | > But why put your brand at the mercy of a government like
         | that?
         | 
         | I tend to trust my government (Canada) and I appreciate that
         | WHOIS information is hidden by default for .ca domains. I live
         | here and always will so it seems fit to use the national TLD
         | for representing myself and my work.
        
           | varun_ch wrote:
           | same here with .ch! I trust Switzerland's stability way more
           | than I'd trust any business or country. I'm not actually sure
           | if there's any ccTLD more trustworthy. (yes I know that the
           | TLD is 'managed' by a private company but still)
        
           | tephra wrote:
           | IIRC CIRA who is the delegated ccTLD manager of .ca is not a
           | government entity (this is quite common in the ccTLD space
           | actually, a lot of ccTLD are being managed by foundations or
           | non-profits).
        
       | stackskipton wrote:
       | This smells like something happened with MarkMonitor, they
       | accidently flagged zoom.us as brand spoofing and filed copyright
       | complaint with GoDaddy who runs .us TLD. GoDaddy suspended the
       | domain per the complaint.
        
         | lolinder wrote:
         | It's possible, but MarkMonitor is Zoom's registrar, so there
         | are plenty of other ways for a miscommunication between
         | MarkMonitor and GoDaddy to cause this. Copyright complaints
         | would be a more reasonable theory if MarkMonitor were mentioned
         | and didn't have any other involvement.
        
           | stackskipton wrote:
           | I guess but if MarkMonitor accidently suspended it, it would
           | be ClientHold but it was widely reported it was showing as
           | ServerHold.
           | 
           | ServerHold is used with Registry (GoDaddy in this case) is
           | disabling vs ClientHold is when registrar is pulling the plug
           | (MarkMonitor)
           | 
           | So what would have MarkMonitor said to GoDaddy to cause them
           | to ServerHold a domain?
        
             | altairprime wrote:
             | At one point on a trip to Hawaii I was detained in my room
             | by hotel security for fifteen minutes after requesting a
             | room key to replace the one I lost.
             | 
             | It turns out that they had typo'd 12 into the request type
             | field instead of 1, and type 12 was "Covid lockdown
             | protocol with security enforcement" leftover from 2020 and
             | latent in their systems.
             | 
             | Depending on MarkMonitor have chosen to integrate with each
             | other to handle the sort of trademark management that is
             | MarkMonitor's premium offering, either _or_ both parties
             | _could_ have simply been off-by-one or typo'd in a
             | transaction to cause this. It's absolutely plausible to
             | create a confusing nightmare outcome with a one-byte error.
             | (And we're having quite incredible cosmic rays today, so I
             | hope they're using ECC RAM!)
        
         | Alupis wrote:
         | If this is the case, then it seems to be a very clear-cut
         | example as-to why we should reject these sort of automated
         | "take downs". They can and are abused, including copyright
         | violations on Github, YouTube, etc.
         | 
         | Since when did we accept, as a society, guilty until proven
         | innocent? I recognize GoDaddy is not the government - but this
         | is unacceptable. A human spending 3 seconds looking at the
         | domain would understand it's a false-positive and should not be
         | removed.
        
           | selcuka wrote:
           | > Since when did we accept, as a society, guilty until proven
           | innocent?
           | 
           | At least since the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
        
         | layman51 wrote:
         | I don't know if I'm misremembering, but I remember getting
         | automated service emails about how Zoom.us will be a deprecated
         | domain in favor of Zoom.com
         | 
         | When this outage happened, I assumed that they finally "made
         | the switch" over but something went wrong.
         | 
         | Something I heard is that there was a Twitter account @zoom_us
         | that was also deleted today.
        
       | xyst wrote:
       | Zoom, a multibillion dollar corporation, uses the shit tier of
       | all companies, _GoDaddy_, for their registrar?
       | 
       | What a blunder.
        
         | lucb1e wrote:
         | That's not the registrar, that's the registry
        
         | londons_explore wrote:
         | GoDaddy runs the .us TLD. You cannot avoid them if you want
         | that TLD
        
           | Geezus_42 wrote:
           | You can avoid them by not using the .us TLD.
        
       | film42 wrote:
       | Zoom CEO: Hi, we'd like an SLA credit for the global outage you
       | caused our company.
       | 
       | GoDaddy: I am so sorry about that. I can offer you a one-time
       | coupon for $10 off your next purchase or renewal. Would you like
       | me to apply this to your account?
       | 
       | ---
       | 
       | Most companies just hope an apologetic zoom call is enough to
       | retain your business, and most of the time it works. Not enough
       | has been written about the asymmetry of your SLA credits to your
       | revenue impact for a given vendor outage and how that should
       | guide your build vs buy decision framework.
        
         | mikeocool wrote:
         | You probably don't want to optimize for the SLA credit making
         | up for a significant part of your lost revenue -- because that
         | would mean when things are operating normally, you don't have
         | much of a profit margin.
         | 
         | SLA's are generally more helpful for getting out of long term
         | contracts with unreliable vendors than actually making up for
         | revenue lost during an outage.
        
           | kevincox wrote:
           | SLA credits are an incentive for the service provider not
           | making up for lost revenue from the outage.
           | 
           | If you have 100% SLA credit under 99% availability you can't
           | aford to be less than 99% available and I know that your SLA
           | means something to you, not just an aspirational bullet
           | point.
        
         | Geezus_42 wrote:
         | Why would you use godaddy for a service as large as Zoom? They
         | have been garbage for years. The way they locked out their ACME
         | api for anyone but top tear clients sealed the deal for me. I
         | would never trust them.
        
           | Geezus_42 wrote:
           | I just remembered, they also can't do DKIM correctly. What
           | good is a DNS provider that can't follow standards?
        
           | technion wrote:
           | Companies as big as zoom are still perfectly capable of
           | having a high level VIP decide "we're going to use GoDaddy
           | because I saw their Superbowl ad".
        
           | 0x0000000 wrote:
           | They don't use Godaddy directly. Godaddy is the registry for
           | .us. Zoom's registrar is MarkMonitor, who appear to be at
           | fault for this outage.
        
             | sgarland wrote:
             | Never heard of MarkMonitor before. Not a great start.
             | 
             | I had Google Domains for years, until they abruptly and
             | bizarrely abandoned it, then I left for Porkbun. Never had
             | a problem with either of them. I get yearly auto-renewal
             | notices. Everything works, and it's very boring, which is
             | precisely what I want from a registrar.
        
               | dewey wrote:
               | That's because you are maybe not in the market for
               | MarkMonitor. If you check the whois for any global brands
               | chances are they are held by MarkMonitor. Just like you
               | don't use EY as your tax advisor.
        
               | sgarland wrote:
               | Genuinely, I don't understand how anything other than
               | uptime matters for a domain registrar.
               | 
               | What services are they offering that makes them
               | attractive to corporations?
        
               | reilly3000 wrote:
               | They generally do full service brand monitoring to
               | protect IP and maintain continuity. You would outsource
               | monitoring for trademark infringement to them, and be
               | certain that domain renewals are done perfectly for a
               | portfolio of high value domains.
        
               | lolinder wrote:
               | Which is why this outage is so weird: the entire point of
               | paying MarkMonitor is ensuring that absolutely nothing
               | goes wrong with a very fraught process, and they seem to
               | have just taken down one of the biggest brands they
               | support.
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | Precisely. You pay a company like this the nosebleed-
               | inducing fees they charge so that this exact event never
               | happens. That assurance, and not the mechanics of domain
               | registration or canned web searches or whatever else, is
               | their product.
               | 
               | It's like, as I'm sure I'm paraphrasing from something I
               | read God alone knows how many years ago, if your
               | publicist lets you walk into a press event with a giant
               | blob of snot hanging out of your nose. There surely is a
               | reason why that error occurred, and it probably is at
               | least a pretty good reason. But no one is very surprised
               | to see the intro invite from your _new_ publicist.
               | 
               | It isn't a relationship you blow up on a whim, but Zoom
               | that can't route call traffic is Zoom that's not
               | generating revenue, and while the reputational impact is
               | negligible if it happens once, it had _really_ better
               | happen _only once._ Zoom is the incumbent; no one
               | remembers they were revolutionary once, now everyone only
               | notices the parts they don 't like. (Being a skilled but
               | politically naive sysadmin is much the same.)
               | 
               | Basically, this is why Ma Bell - which had about the only
               | stronger possible "uptime" expectation, in that no one
               | uses Zoom for 911 - was so uptight you couldn't even plug
               | in a modem until about five minutes before divestiture,
               | and specified everything down to the number of turns in
               | the splices their technicians made. There was a fad among
               | programmers, when I was a child, to consider such
               | practices stodgy.
        
               | macintux wrote:
               | Obligatory Indiana Bell building rotation link.
               | 
               | https://www.archdaily.com/973183/the-building-that-moved-
               | how...
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | I did not know that story!
               | 
               | What a paragon of engineering.
        
               | slyall wrote:
               | The are supposed to also filter things like complaints.
               | If somebody complains I'm sending spam and I only pay
               | $20/year then my registrar might lock my domain and then
               | I have to work to get it back online.
               | 
               | Mark Monitor will apply a lot more filtering to
               | complaints.
               | 
               | Ironically this is allegedly what happened in this case,
               | a complaint about the domain got it taken offline.
        
               | toast0 wrote:
               | Like others said, uptime for a registrar barely matters.
               | For an important domain, I don't want anything to change,
               | and if the registrar is down, nothing will change, so
               | that's good.
               | 
               | What MarkMonitor can provide is things like facilitating
               | RegistryLock, which makes it even harder for changes to
               | be made. And account reps that know what's going on. I
               | hate working with account reps, but if they're
               | knowledgable and easy to work with, it's ok.
               | 
               | They do some trademark monitoring (thus the name), if you
               | want to get your own related app taken down from Google
               | Play :p (I'm not bitter, it was amusing). And presence
               | services if you need to hold a domain in a weird location
               | that wants a presence, they can probably arrange it,
               | which is handy at times.
               | 
               | I'd love to know more details on this incident,
               | MarkMonitor had a bulletproof reputation as a registrar
               | that won't fuck up. Godaddy doesn't, but then I didn't
               | realize they had taken over the contract for .us
        
               | kryptiskt wrote:
               | They can offer humans in the loop, and those cost a lot.
               | Like, a real live human will contact you and ask if you
               | really want to transfer microsoft.com to Shady Shell
               | Company (Bermuda) Ltd. Porkbun's pricing model is less
               | attractive when your domains are worth billions to you.
        
               | the-rc wrote:
               | MarkMonitor has been around forever. It's used by many of
               | the largest companies. I remember quite a few Google
               | outages that could be tracked down to MM issues.
        
               | Moto7451 wrote:
               | I worked at a company that used MM and was involved in
               | some of the domain work.
               | 
               | One of the really nice things about the service is they
               | handle a lot of the general business continuity and
               | security stuff that can really suck with traditional
               | registrars. One of their main lines of work is they'll
               | work with you to resolve tld-squatting and typo-squatting
               | by working directly with the registrars.
               | 
               | Even before an infinite number of vanity or scammy tlds
               | started showing up it would be pretty difficult to find
               | <your-growing-unicorn-startup>.biz to add to your
               | portfolio of domains since the owner may just have
               | forgotten to update their email in their registrar and
               | were coasting on a 10 year registration. Maybe the squat
               | was intentional and it's now a 1:1 replica of your
               | homepage with a phishing or other credit card scam going.
               | Stuff like that really sucks to do yourself while
               | handling your other responsibilities. MM was pretty
               | successful at getting in touch with the owners in the
               | first place and having the registrar yank and transfer in
               | the latter case. YMMV of course.
               | 
               | Once a lot of tlds started showing up, and especially the
               | porn related ones, they worked with the new registrars
               | directly (like GoDaddy in the .us case here) in the
               | "sunrise period" to make sure something like google.xxx
               | doesn't become a front page article about an actual porn
               | site (in case you're wondering, that one doesn't go
               | anywhere at all). Your other options are to work directly
               | with each registrar or ICANN.
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | Oh, I didn't know they'd been around since '99. They
               | called me on behalf of a Hollywood titan about one of my
               | hobby domains, which happened to partially coincide at a
               | dictionary word with one of their client's trademarks,
               | some time around 2006. I don't recall that the
               | approximate paralegal I spoke with actually identified
               | the company; I never forgot the call, but hadn't thought
               | to check who manages the studio's own domain. Go figure.
               | 
               | I found them surprisingly easy to deal with, and happy to
               | have me on record that my toy domain had nothing to do
               | with either their client or any money. I assumed as long
               | as that remained the case I would never hear from them
               | again, and for the decade or so longer I kept the domain,
               | that was exactly how things went.
        
               | prmoustache wrote:
               | I may be wrong but I think I saw MarkMonitor changing
               | hands a year or two ago so the MarkMonitor of today might
               | not be at the same level and quality of service as
               | before.
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | Yeah, in 2022 acquired by some kind of sketchy rollup of
               | lots of legacy/web-1.0 firms or what remained of them, it
               | looks like.
               | 
               | Oh, well. It's been a long time since I was so naive as
               | not to do a quick informal trademark/brand search before
               | I register a new domain, so I don't really expect to hear
               | from them again any time soon, either.
        
               | sidewndr46 wrote:
               | I'd argue the ability of a private company to exert
               | control over all TLDs on the behalf of their clients is
               | indicative of a problem in the domain registrar system.
               | Not a "service"
        
             | subscribed wrote:
             | No, Mark Monitor have requested the correct change (EPP
             | status code `ServerUpdateProhibited), GoDaddy messed it up.
             | 
             | (I'm not affiliated with either, but happen to know the
             | technical details of the outage)
        
               | SahAssar wrote:
               | Could you let us know how you know the technical details?
               | Is there some public info the rest of us haven't been
               | clued into?
        
           | signal11 wrote:
           | From the linked article
           | 
           | > This block was the result of a communication error between
           | Zoom's domain registrar, Markmonitor, and GoDaddy Registry,
           | which resulted in GoDaddy Registry mistakenly shutting down
           | zoom.us domain.
           | 
           | Markmonitor is used by some fairly large corps and web
           | properties. It'll be interesting to find out exactly what
           | this miscommunication was.
        
         | pavelstoev wrote:
         | Can't have an apologetic zoom call when zoom is down ...
        
         | crazygringo wrote:
         | If there were symmetry, then renewing the domain would cost
         | millions instead of $20 or whatever it is, to cover the
         | payouts. Is that what you want?
         | 
         | If it is, you can buy custom insurance for the event from an
         | insurance company, and pay the same kind of yearly fee.
         | 
         | And remember that with build vs buy, what you build will often
         | be worse than what you buy, because at least what you buy is
         | getting bugs fixed from bug reports across the world from other
         | customers. An internal tool will rarely be as stress-tested and
         | battle-hardened as what you can buy.
        
       | kemals wrote:
       | ThousandEyes analysis of the outage:
       | https://www.thousandeyes.com/blog/zoom-outage-analysis-april...
        
         | bo1024 wrote:
         | Thanks, this is really helpful. I had not even realized that
         | every DNS query for .us (for example) goes through a single
         | root registry before going to the actual nameservers.
        
           | hanikesn wrote:
           | It's usually cached
        
         | gwbas1c wrote:
         | The article lists a lot of facts, but it doesn't actually
         | explain what happened.
         | 
         | IE, it explains what DNS is, but it _doesn 't explain why the
         | outage happened._ Instead, it merely gives a timeline with a
         | lot of context that's useful for someone who's still learning
         | about what DNS is and how it works.
        
       | master_crab wrote:
       | It's always DNS!
        
         | imglorp wrote:
         | It's not DNS         There's no way it's DNS         It was DNS
        
       | bongodongobob wrote:
       | Paradoxically, productivity spiked.
        
       | rajeshvar wrote:
       | Flush the cache instructions were posted under zoom.us :)
       | 
       | https://status.zoom.us/incidents/pw9r9vnq5rvk
        
         | gblargg wrote:
         | I thought it was funny that they posted information about the
         | outage on the same domain that had the outage.
        
           | agos wrote:
           | having a status page on the same domain seems... unfortunate.
           | Other big players have it right, see githubstatus.com
        
             | kevincox wrote:
             | But please also make status.github.com redirect there or I
             | won't know how to find it.
        
       | jetsnoc wrote:
       | They need to implement secondary and tertiary domains--with
       | diverse registrars and hosting infrastructure--for the Zoom
       | client's calling home. Maybe even a fallback anycast ip address
       | for service discovery. Given how much companies like mine pay for
       | service, it's reasonable to expect that level of engineering
       | foresight. But hindsight will do--let's get it fixed. #HugOps to
       | all employees working overtime and taking care of this.
        
         | macintux wrote:
         | It certainly was frustrating that the status host was also in
         | the zoom.us domain.
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | That seriously devalues MarkMonitor's services. MarkMonitor
       | claims to be a "an ICANN-accredited registrar and recognized
       | industry leader since 1999". The whole point of paying for
       | MarkMonitor is that they're an expensive service for valuable
       | domains and are not allowed to screw up. GoDaddy should not be
       | involved here at all.
        
         | Maxious wrote:
         | GoDaddy runs the root dns for .us
        
           | dawnerd wrote:
           | Wait really? I use a .us domain for personal stuff, that..
           | makes me want to reconsider.
        
             | NewJazz wrote:
             | Also .us domains don't have who is privacy.
        
               | gerdesj wrote:
               | Please don't keep us in suspense ... who is privacy?
        
               | stwrzn wrote:
               | They probably meant "whois privacy"[1] (without the
               | space). Whois is basically a way to get information about
               | a domain name (and many other stuff). Whois privacy just
               | ensures that your address, name and other stuff is not
               | public.
               | 
               | [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_privacy
        
               | imcritic wrote:
               | They were probably joking when they asked that question.
               | 
               | Your reply doesn't seem sarcastic, so I take it you
               | genuinely r/whoosh'ed (that's a reference to a subreddit
               | about situations where someone is acting clueless).
        
               | stwrzn wrote:
               | I know ;) Some people still value an explanation though.
        
               | 0_gravitas wrote:
               | Realistically, I don't think HN is the place for those
               | kinds of jokes, which are best kept for reddit/twitter.
        
               | kitchi wrote:
               | Yeah I'm increasingly seeing these reddit-style low
               | effort jokes on here, hopefully it's transient as folks
               | acclimatize to the culture and customs here.
        
               | lazide wrote:
               | Yeah I found that out when I stupidly used my real
               | contact info, and ended up getting spammed all to hell.
        
               | talideon wrote:
               | WHOIS privacy isn't a registry-level service. It's a
               | registrar-level service.
        
               | Kwpolska wrote:
               | It's both. Some domains do not allow WHOIS privacy (.us
               | is one of them), some have it built-in, while most don't
               | care and registrars can fill in with fake data.
        
           | AStonesThrow wrote:
           | > GoDaddy runs the root dns for .us
           | 
           | .us is not the "root DNS" and your misidentification is
           | muddying the waters.
           | 
           | .us is a TLD (Top-Level Domain) and more specifically, a
           | ccTLD (cc = 'Country Code').
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.us
           | 
           | And the English Wikipedia says that its registrar is a
           | subsidiary of GoDaddy named "Registry Services, LLC".
           | 
           | The root DNS servers and registry are _not_ run by GoDaddy or
           | a subsidiary.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_name_server
           | 
           | They are operated by important entities. Not companies that
           | release sexy commercials featuring Danica Patrick. I keep
           | getting confused between GoDaddy and Carl's, Jr.
        
             | bawolff wrote:
             | I think its clear from context they mean the .us TLD, and
             | not the root zone, since obviously it wouldn't make sense
             | to talk about the root zone for .us.
             | 
             | Its also very reasonable to use the more well-known name of
             | the parent company to describe sonething done by its
             | subsidary.
        
           | mentalgear wrote:
           | GoDaddy is the rot of us domains, besides being rotten
           | culturally as well
        
           | unethical_ban wrote:
           | I understood what you meant. I can understand why someone
           | would want to clarify the terminology for those who don't
           | know DNS well.
        
         | TheDong wrote:
         | MarkMonitor isn't at fault here.
         | 
         | If you register a ".ps" domain, it doesn't matter if you use
         | MarkMonitor or Namecheap, they can't help you when the ongoing
         | genocide results in the removal of Palestine as a country and
         | ".ps" no longer is a valid country code top level domain.
         | 
         | Similarly, if you register a .us domain instead of a ".com",
         | ".net", or ".org", MarkMonitor can't help you when GoDaddy
         | inevitably screws up.
         | 
         | History has borne this out: .com domains are well-managed.
         | ccTLDs like '.io', '.su', and '.fj' have all had significant
         | security or availability issues because they're run by "eh,
         | whoever the hell the country picks" with no standards.
         | 
         | Financially, a proper gTLD also can't raise prices unilaterally
         | and weirdly, while if you pick a ccTLD, the country has free
         | reign to arbitrarily change prices, delete your domain, take
         | over your domain, etc etc.
         | 
         | Do not use a ccTLD.
        
           | chrismorgan wrote:
           | >>> _This block was the result of a communication error
           | between Zoom's domain registrar, Markmonitor, and GoDaddy
           | Registry, which resulted in GoDaddy Registry mistakenly
           | shutting down zoom.us domain._
           | 
           | That sounds like MarkMonitor is at least partly at fault
           | here.
        
             | NewJazz wrote:
             | I mean, one person is saying what to do and the other
             | person is doing it. And the person doing things is taking
             | down zoom.us... Also knowing who godaddy is and what they
             | do...
        
             | subscribed wrote:
             | Mark Monitor have issued a correct request for the
             | `serverUpdateProhibited`, but GoDaddy changed the code to
             | `serverHold` instead.
             | 
             | 100% on the GoDaddy staff.
        
               | oarsinsync wrote:
               | > Mark Monitor have issued a correct request for the
               | `serverUpdateProhibited`, but GoDaddy changed the code to
               | `serverHold` instead.
               | 
               | I'm curious about where are you seeing what Mark Monitor
               | requested? It doesn't appear in the official status
               | update. Is this public information formally posted
               | somewhere we can all see?
        
           | Hackbraten wrote:
           | There are countries whose ccTLD registrars are impeccably
           | well-run and have been for decades, such as DENIC, the entity
           | that oversees the .de ccTLD.
           | 
           | If you're based in Germany, I don't see a reason why you
           | would want to avoid .de domains.
        
             | immibis wrote:
             | Them being subject to the pretty draconian laws of Germany
             | is a minus for most people if they had no other reason to
             | have to follow those laws (such as not being in Germany).
        
               | moe_sc wrote:
               | Mind ellaborating what draconian laws you are talking
               | about?
        
               | immibis wrote:
               | If it's not strictly non-commercial then you have to
               | publish your fill name and home address prominently on
               | it. You can't say anything insulting about anyone, even
               | if true. And you can't criticize what Israel did because
               | it's considered antisemitism.
        
               | lxgr wrote:
               | > If it's not strictly non-commercial then you have to
               | publish your fill name and home address prominently on
               | it.
               | 
               | Under German law, as far as I understand this is true for
               | publications "addressed to a German audience" regardless
               | of your domain's TLD, your server location etc.
        
               | lxgr wrote:
               | Somebody that is based in Germany (which is what GP was
               | recommending .de for) is usually subject to German law,
               | due to... being in Germany.
               | 
               | And conversely, when _not_ based in Germany, you 'd need
               | a proxy Administrative Contact anyway. (Registrars can
               | probably provide that for you, but it seems like asking
               | for trouble.)
        
           | chrismorgan wrote:
           | > _Financially, a proper gTLD also can 't raise prices
           | unilaterally and weirdly, while if you pick a ccTLD, the
           | country has free reign to arbitrarily change prices, delete
           | your domain, take over your domain, etc etc._
           | 
           | Look into what's happened with pricing on domains like .org
           | and .info. They're increasingly absurd, with the restrictions
           | on price increases that once were there largely being
           | removed, at the pushing of the sharks that bought the
           | registrar. Why are these prices increasing well above
           | inflation rate, when if anything the costs should go _down_
           | over time? Why is .info now almost twice as expensive as
           | .com?
        
             | agwa wrote:
             | Although the .org price caps are gone, the registry has to
             | raise prices uniformly for all domains. They can't target
             | popular domains for discriminatory pricing. ccTLDs can.
        
               | ryan29 wrote:
               | > They can't target popular domains for discriminatory
               | pricing.
               | 
               | That's not completely accurate. Section 2.10c of the base
               | registry agreement says the following in relation to the
               | uniform pricing obligations:
               | 
               | > The foregoing requirements of this Section 2.10(c)
               | shall not apply for (i) purposes of determining Renewal
               | Pricing if the registrar has provided Registry Operator
               | with documentation that demonstrates that the applicable
               | registrant expressly agreed in its registration agreement
               | with registrar to higher Renewal Pricing at the time of
               | the initial registration
               | 
               | Most registrars have blanket statements in their
               | registration agreement that say premium domains may be
               | subject to higher renewal pricing. For registry premium
               | domains, there are no contractual limits on pricing or
               | price discrimination. AFAIK, the registries can price
               | premium domains however they want.
        
               | agwa wrote:
               | You omitted key portions of that section. Here's the full
               | quote (emphasis added):
               | 
               | > The foregoing requirements of this Section 2.10(c)
               | shall not apply for (i) purposes of determining Renewal
               | Pricing if the registrar has provided Registry Operator
               | with documentation that demonstrates that the applicable
               | registrant expressly agreed in its registration agreement
               | with registrar to higher Renewal Pricing at the time of
               | the initial registration of the domain name _following
               | clear and conspicuous disclosure of such Renewal Pricing
               | to such registrant_
               | 
               | Furthermore:
               | 
               | > _The parties acknowledge that the purpose of this
               | Section 2.10(c) is to prohibit abusive and /or
               | discriminatory Renewal Pricing practices imposed by
               | Registry Operator without the written consent of the
               | applicable registrant at the time of the initial
               | registration of the domain and this Section 2.10(c) will
               | be interpreted broadly to prohibit such practices_
               | 
               | Yes, premium domains can be priced higher, but the
               | Renewal Pricing has to be "clear and conspicuous" to the
               | registrant at the time of initial registration. Are you
               | aware of any litigation related to this?
        
         | electroly wrote:
         | GoDaddy Registry operates the .us registry. You cannot have a
         | .us domain without their involvement. Consider whether you
         | wanted a .com domain instead (which is operated by Verisign).
        
           | throw_a_grenade wrote:
           | zoom.com is an audio equipment manufacturer, which was there
           | before zoom.us.
           | 
           | I guess that's what happens where they had to accept
           | substandard domain, because they were unwilling to be
           | creative about their name.
        
             | redbell wrote:
             | But the dot com domain is now owned by _Zoom
             | Communications_ or just Zoom (as we know it). If you type
             | "zoom.us" in your browser, you will be redirected to
             | https://www.zoom.com/
        
             | rhubarbtree wrote:
             | Incidentally, Zoom seems a terrible name for a video
             | conferencing app - anyone know why they chose it?
        
               | thund wrote:
               | Subjective, Zoom is a pretty cool name
        
               | j45 wrote:
               | One guess - fast video.
        
               | j45 wrote:
               | Added context: Zoom delivered a step change in video
               | conferencing quality for the many, vs the few, and in a
               | lot of ways did seem to force others to be better.
               | 
               | During the pandemic many people used zoom more than their
               | cell phones.
        
               | rhubarbtree wrote:
               | I immediately agreed with this, but at the same time it's
               | not "fast" is it? It's higher quality or more reliably,
               | something like that. But emotionally I agree it does feel
               | "faster".
        
               | j45 wrote:
               | Fair point - it's smoother video that gives a better
               | quality experience.
               | 
               | The speed of starting a call sometimes could take a bit
               | more but once established was higher quality than the
               | alternatives at the time.
        
               | eesmith wrote:
               | The Wikipedia editors know, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
               | /Zoom_Communications#Early_year... :
               | 
               | > In May 2012, the company changed its name to Zoom,
               | influenced by Thacher Hurd's children's book Zoom City.
               | 
               | It cites https://vator.tv/2020-03-26-when-zoom-was-young-
               | the-early-ye... where Jim Scheinman says:
               | 
               | > "I loved this fun little book as much as my kids, and
               | hoped to use the name someday for the perfect company
               | that embodied the same values of creativity, exploration,
               | happiness, and trust. And the name works perfectly with a
               | product that connects us visually to one another and that
               | always works so fast and seamlessly."
        
               | sidewndr46 wrote:
               | The reference to "Zoom City" is from an article published
               | in 2020. It seems like a remarkably fitting ret-conning
               | of what is probably a very boring branding decision.
        
               | eesmith wrote:
               | What would be the point of ret-conning some other
               | decision?
        
               | JadeNB wrote:
               | > In May 2012, the company changed its name to Zoom,
               | influenced by Thacher Hurd's children's book Zoom City.
               | 
               | To save people the agony of visiting Wikipedia for
               | themselves to check, changed from Saasbee. Which, good
               | call.
        
               | bakuninsbart wrote:
               | It is a one-syllable word, easy to pronounce in many
               | languages, quite distinct from other words and brands,
               | and can easily be turned into a verb.
        
               | rhubarbtree wrote:
               | Why does that make it a good name for video in
               | particular?
        
               | racked wrote:
               | Why does it have to be -- ever "googled" something? ;-)
        
               | andylynch wrote:
               | Cameras often have zoom lenses for close ups.
               | 
               | Fits great with the idea of bringing people together with
               | video.
        
               | Hobadee wrote:
               | Verbing your nouns is a great way to lose your trademark.
        
               | DiggyJohnson wrote:
               | When they came up with it that would be a best case
               | scenario.
        
               | Talanes wrote:
               | Are there any actual recent examples of this? The major
               | examples I've always heard are solidly in the 20th
               | century. It's not like Google has had any problem holding
               | their trademark.
        
               | skywhopper wrote:
               | It's all relative. Is "Webex" better? "Skype"?
               | "BlueJeans"??
        
               | rhubarbtree wrote:
               | Fair. They are worse.
        
               | moomin wrote:
               | Especially Skype, which is getting shit down. In favour
               | of Teams, which is so much worse it's hard to describe.
        
               | lambdaone wrote:
               | That's a really fantastic typo. I know it was
               | unintentional, but still...
        
               | cute_boi wrote:
               | We use Skype and it is worst atm. Skype freezes every
               | minute.
        
               | disillusioned wrote:
               | BlueJeans is one of those absolutely catastrophically
               | stupid branding decisions. There's just........ no
               | justification. It's confusing at best, and abbreviated as
               | BJ at worst.
        
             | thih9 wrote:
             | > zoom.com is an audio equipment manufacturer
             | 
             | False, the audio equipment manufacturer uses:
             | https://zoomcorp.com/
             | 
             | The https://zoom.com domain shows content from the video
             | chat platform.
        
               | ceejayoz wrote:
               | They did buy zoom.com from someone in 2019, though, for
               | $2M.
               | 
               | https://domainnamewire.com/2019/03/23/did-zoom-
               | pay-2-million...
        
               | lakkal wrote:
               | Interesting. I used to buy Zoom modems in the 80s-90s
               | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_Telephonics), but
               | apparently they have nothing to do with either of the
               | other two Zoom companies mentioned here. I had
               | occasionally wondered but never looked into it until now.
        
               | polynomial wrote:
               | Back in the day, wasn't it either Zoom or Hayes?
        
               | kevinmhickey wrote:
               | Don't forget US Robotics
        
             | dtgriscom wrote:
             | I always assumed that Zoom reacted to security/privacy
             | concerns about its association with China by getting a
             | "*.us" domain that sounded very United States.
        
               | jsheard wrote:
               | AFAICT they've used that domain since day one, so
               | probably not.
        
               | zeristor wrote:
               | Maybe it's just simple word play of "Zoom us" as in call
               | us. As opposed to "Zoom me" which might be just for one
               | person rather than group chat.
        
               | mikedelfino wrote:
               | Do English speakers pronounce .us domains as dot us
               | instead of dot u s?
        
               | Ylpertnodi wrote:
               | Dot yoo ess. Source: am European.
        
               | KineticLensman wrote:
               | Me too: 'you ess' (British)
        
               | pasc1878 wrote:
               | Noting that we British would always call our country "you
               | kay" so .us would be derived from that. I suspect similar
               | reasoning from Europe.
        
               | wyclif wrote:
               | I also say 'dot you ess' and I was born in the USA.
        
               | williamscales wrote:
               | It would only be pronounced as "uhhss" as part of a
               | domain hack. Otherwise "you ess". Source: am from USA.
        
               | RIMR wrote:
               | Zoomus
        
             | Fokamul wrote:
             | Maybe after recent US events, everything will move to .ru
             | TLD
        
             | CPLX wrote:
             | They've had zoom.com since at least 2019 or so. It used to
             | just be a redirect to Zoom.us though they've made a switch
             | since then.
        
             | yahoozoo wrote:
             | This is ... Zombocom.
        
               | op00to wrote:
               | You can do anything at ZomboCom.
               | 
               | Anything at all.
               | 
               | The only limit ... is yourself.
        
         | redbell wrote:
         | > The whole point of paying for MarkMonitor is that they're an
         | expensive service for valuable domains
         | 
         | A while ago and, out of curiosity, I did a Whois Lookup to see
         | what big tech companies are using as their domain registrar and
         | found that Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Tesla, Netflix and
         | Shopify are all using MarkMonitor. On the other hand Apple uses
         | "Nom-iq Ltd. dba COM LAUDE", Meta (and its children) uses
         | RegistrarSafe and Nvidia uses SafeNames.
        
           | taspeotis wrote:
           | > COM LAUDE
           | 
           | Someone had fun with that one.
        
           | jenny91 wrote:
           | RegistrarSafe is a registrar spun up by Meta for precisely
           | the purpose of guarding their own domains and isn't open to
           | external customers.
        
           | conradev wrote:
           | Many of those also run their own gTLDs, too: .apple, .google,
           | etc
        
           | snowwrestler wrote:
           | That's interesting, Apple used to use CSC, which is the
           | "other" big corporate registrar, competitor to MarkMonitor.
        
         | ValveFan6969 wrote:
         | Agreed. This is a whole lot of screw ups that I would have
         | expected from the indie company down the street, not an ICANN
         | accredited registrar. It's pretty pathetic when it takes public
         | pressure for the ICANN to finally start doing their goddamn
         | job.
        
         | renegade-otter wrote:
         | These big companies spend tens of millions on homegrown
         | tooling, even their own languages and databases, but they can't
         | assign one dev to write a domain-monitoring tool?
        
           | lazide wrote:
           | It's one of those 'this problem is so simple, our big
           | corporation cannot hope to solve it' type of problems.
        
           | dewey wrote:
           | You are thinking like a developer. In reality that means that
           | now they are responsible for it, if MarkMonitor messes
           | something up they can use their relationship to all the
           | registrars to fix the problem and MarkMonitor is on the hook
           | in case anything goes wrong.
           | 
           | This is a better situation to be in than some internal
           | tooling that failed to notify someone because it got
           | forgotten after the developer left.
        
           | crazygringo wrote:
           | Because it's cheaper and more reliable to outsource that to a
           | company specializing in it.
           | 
           | If one dev had written it, how many times would that tool
           | have failed by now? When the original dev left the company a
           | decade ago, the tool has been transferred between teams six
           | times, it failed a migration and the email address it used to
           | send errors to no longer exists so nobody noticed, and it's
           | literally gotten lost in the shuffle?
        
           | zippergz wrote:
           | Markmonitor is much more about the people and service behind
           | it rather than the software. To replace markmonitor you don't
           | need a dev to write a tool. You need a dev to write a tool,
           | and then a team of people who build relationships with
           | everyone in the domain world and are available 24/7 to make
           | calls and deal with issues if they come up.
        
         | debarshri wrote:
         | I guess they are paying markmonitor because of their ability to
         | reach out to Godaddy and get stuff resolved.
         | 
         | Imagine being a small startup with a similar problem. Godaddy
         | will not even entertain you.
        
         | thayne wrote:
         | Well, another point of MarkMonitor is to get access to ccTLDs
         | with requirements that are more difficult for you to meet
         | yourself. Like needing to have a physical address within the
         | country. MarkMonitor has offices in a bunch of countries just
         | to meet that requirement, so they can sell ccTLD domains to
         | customers.
         | 
         | The legality of that system seems a little questionable to me,
         | but IANAL.
        
       | youworkwepay wrote:
       | NoDaddy!
        
       | udev4096 wrote:
       | What do relatively large corporations use for their authoritative
       | nameserver? Do they use PowerDNS, knot, bind, or just use the
       | registrar's nameservers?
        
         | jedberg wrote:
         | Google runs their own, Facebook runs their own, Amazon used
         | AWS, Microsoft uses Azure. Netflix uses AWS.
         | 
         | Most likely all are running some version of Bind, or something
         | custom.
        
           | bc569a80a344f9c wrote:
           | And if you're wondering about the hidden authoritative
           | servers (that the company uses to generate and administer the
           | zones then synced to a global DNS provider such as the ones
           | you listed) two rather popular products for companies that
           | aren't also cloud providers are Infoblox and BlueCat.
        
       | iqandjoke wrote:
       | It should not cause issue as your company should have BCP on this
       | and can switch to other conferencing service.
        
       | ro_bit wrote:
       | 4 hour catastrophic outage because of a shitty domain registrar
       | makes me wonder if zoom will be switching critical services to a
       | different tld sooner or later as a result of this
        
         | Symbiote wrote:
         | Maybe they will use multiple domains.
         | 
         | See for example that AWS Route53 uses com, org, net and uk
         | domains for the nameservers.
        
       | 18172828286177 wrote:
       | Godaddy is such an incompetent organisation. Should not be
       | allowed to administer anything of importance.
        
         | nom wrote:
         | It's easy to blame GoDaddy, but 'miscommunication' takes two.
         | 
         | You pay Markmonitor a shitload of money to make sure this
         | doesn't happen. They should have dedicated people at GoDaddy
         | and direct communication channels.
         | 
         | This is a significant fuckup on Markmonitor's part, even if
         | GoDaddy did something different than was requested from them.
        
           | Hobadee wrote:
           | I can guarantee you that miscommunication doesn't always
           | require 2 people.
           | 
           | Source: Have been _OH SO EVER PRECISCE AND EXACT_ in my
           | communication with certain idiots, and they still screw it
           | up. Several instances of  "put this here carefully", only to
           | return and find it all the way across the room upside-down
           | and broken, come to mind.
        
           | subscribed wrote:
           | Mark Monitor have correctly asked for
           | `serverUpdateProhibited`, GoDaddy changed the code to
           | `serverHold` instead.
           | 
           | I don't know why you're trying to spin it as Mark Monitor
           | fault.
        
         | hinkley wrote:
         | Who knew a company who ran ads with women dressed like Hooters
         | waitresses would turn out to be a fucking clowncar. I mean what
         | are the odds?
        
       | Fokamul wrote:
       | Lol, they use GoDaddy? Aka scammers and racketeers? Aaah .us TLD,
       | too bad they have control over it.
        
       | gameshot911 wrote:
       | Noob here: could this issue have been worked around if you had a
       | personal list of the IP addresses that the domain resolved to?
        
         | natebc wrote:
         | Most DNS issues can, yes. Your hosts file is going to be thick
         | though, and a pain to keep up to date ;P
        
           | blueflow wrote:
           | > Your hosts file is going to be thick though, and a pain to
           | keep up to date
           | 
           | I'm guessing you already know, but for the others: This is
           | precisely what the DNS protocol was created for.
        
       | Galatians4_16 wrote:
       | This wouldn't happen if it were distributed or decentralized like
       | pre-MS Skype used to be.
        
       | brongondwana wrote:
       | This kind of possibility is why Fastmail purchased fastmail.com
       | and migrated away from our old 'fastmail.fm' domain. .fm was
       | cool, but we ran into a couple of outages on the .fm servers
       | meaning we went offline. No such issues since we've been on .com.
        
       | lrvick wrote:
       | To try to convince my employer at the time to drop Zoom, I
       | decided to see how many security vulns I could find in 2-3 hours.
       | 
       | Found 12 confirmed bugs in that window using only binwalk and
       | osint.
       | 
       | The worst was that I noticed the zoom.us godaddy account password
       | reset email address was the personal gmail account of Eric S
       | Yuan, the CEO.
       | 
       | So, I tried to do a password reset on his gmail account. No 2FA,
       | and only needed to answer two reset questions. Hometown, and
       | phone number. Got those from public data and got my reset link,
       | and thus, the ability to control the zoom.us domain name.
       | 
       | They were unable to find a single English speaking security team
       | member to explain these bugs to, and it took them 3 months to
       | confirm them and pay me $800 in bug bounties, total, for all 12
       | bugs.
       | 
       | The one bright side is this did convince my employer to drop
       | them.
        
         | jaxefayo wrote:
         | How long ago was this? A few years ago they were hiring
         | aggressively for security team members in the US, including a
         | dedicated fuzzing team. I'm guessing this was from early on
         | when Zoom was just getting popular?
        
           | lrvick wrote:
           | About 7 years ago
        
       | AStonesThrow wrote:
       | Back in 2008, when my fiancee invited me to visit Catalonia, I
       | was in the market for transatlantic airline tickets. And I'd
       | never flown internationally before, and I applied and obtained a
       | US Passport, and I figured out with my father how to get a
       | Travelex prepaid debit card with Euros loaded, and my fiancee was
       | prodding me anxiously about buying a ticket, and I eventually
       | threw caution to the wind and flew on an airline called "ZOOM".
       | 
       | Now "ZOOM" was supposedly based in Canada and they were
       | supposedly giving bargain-basement fares to Americans as well,
       | from select origins to select destinations. All I needed to do
       | was to get to Lindbergh Field (San Diego International) and ZOOM
       | Airlines would fly me to London Gatwick. And their aircraft had
       | cute friendly livery with big "ZOOOOOOOOM" lettering on the side.
       | And the price was totally cheap.
       | 
       | Well they did their job fine; I landed in Gatwick, took a train
       | to Heathrow, and flew on Iberia into and back out of Barcelona.
       | Unfortunately, before I departed, my father phoned my fiancee to
       | break the news that "ZOOM Airline" was bankrupt, and all their
       | flights were grounded. They had run out of fuel in Scotland, and
       | nobody would top up the tanks. My return ticket from London to
       | San Diego was worthless.
       | 
       | So Dad puts me on a British Airways flight and I got home safe.
       | But from August 2008, or before, I have harbored a visceral
       | animosity towards any foreign actors named "ZOOM".
        
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