It should also be mentioned that the .io TLD’s nameservers themselves are poorly run and fall off the internet way more often that most TLDs. I believe offhand that if you want to offer a four-ish-nines SLA, using .io for your domain name would have by itself blown your downtime budget over the last few years. e.g. https://hackernoon.com/stop-using-io-domain-names-for-production-traffic-b6aa17eeac20
Yeah, .xyz domains are strongly associated with spam; probably because it’s such a cheap domain name. I don’t know if there are spam/SEO penalties against it, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Generally speaking, I wouldn’t really recommend using it for a serious project/product.
Also, myproject.xyz sounds weird to me, but perhaps that’s just me.
The .xyz TLD is fun, small, refreshing, funky, a whole lot cheaper and you don’t support colonialism.
Perhaps, but it still sounds childish and looks like something you’d choose if all other serious options are not available. At least that’s the feel I get and I’m certain a lot of other more casual user do too. .io was kind of lucky that it managed to get into the .com, .net, .co.uk, … group of common domain names.
Yeah, good point. It must be my recent interactions with the indieweb, but… The internet is supposed to be fun and perhaps, to some degree, childish. For serious stuff, by all means, avoid .xyz, .wtf, .ooo, use .org, .com, .net, .tech, .news, .computer. There’s so much out there, even more meaningful than “input/output” :)
Sorry to be so cynical, but it’s easy to lose touch with the fun internet when even personal blogs are packed with trackers and advertising and trying to monetize everybody.
Except for some relatively obscure corners, the light hearted and fun internet is dead. At this point, I doubt most people ever even experienced that part of it.
I strongly disagree. Let’s say in 1995 there were 10 websites and all of them were fun and childish. In 2000 maybe there were 10,000 websites and 50 of them were fun and childish. In 2020 there are 10 million websites and 10,000 of them are fun and childish. And I see people calling that a bad thing?!
The internet of the 90s didn’t go away, there’s just more built up around it. You can have that old internet back, just block Facebook and Google and hell even the top million sites. All you have to do is just not visit the sites you don’t like. When I hear people say the old internet is gone what I hear is that they want all websites to be like the old internet. There’s more “old internet” today than there ever has been and it’s easier to find those sites than it ever has been. I don’t go into my favorite ice cream shop and complain about all the fancy new flavors, because I can still buy plain old vanilla. Strawberry shortcake didn’t replace my favorite flavor, it’s all still there. The only difference now is that I have other flavors tempting me, flavors no one is forcing me to buy. Vanilla is still there.
Complaining that the good sites are stuck to the obscure corners ignores the fact that the 90s web was an obscure corner.
I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I was on the internet in 1995, and while there are things I miss, like the higher signal to noise ratio and less advertising, I don’t have anything against the modern web and I don’t have any interest in making the modern internet more like the internet of the past.
The point I was making is that the whole mindset of the web has changed, and even if you block millions of sites you’re not going to get the same open and “fun” experience as browsing back in the 90s. The mere fact that you have to put so much effort into it changes the experience.
It’s like trying to relive the 1870s by driving a horse and buggy in traffic on modern streets - maybe you’re getting some idea for what it was like, but it’s a long ways off from what it was really like back then.
I didn’t intend for my comment to be a pointed one, or to blame anyone. It was perhaps directed more at the people who run those blogs that are packed with trackers and advertising.
Is that a film where the man is a thoughtful person or more of a badass? If thoughtful you can make a thoughful argument. If badass, I suppose there isn’t much of an argument to be be made.
I agree. I own both snazz.xyz (because it’s fun, short, and fits well with the theme of my username) and a more professional website with my CV and academic information at [firstname][lastname].com. I think that owning both serves me well at a lower annual cost than a single .io.
I’m not sure if I missed something in the article, but is .xyz different from .org, .com etc. or is it just an alternative to .io with better availability of names?
Who knows what will happen to your domain registration when control is passed to the Mauritian government?
“The people of Mauritius are multiethnic, multi-religious, multicultural and multilingual. The island’s government is closely modelled on the Westminster parliamentary system, and Mauritius is highly ranked for democracy and for economic and political freedom.” - Wikipedia
I’m going to assume they’ll enjoy taking my money?
I would assume, and hope, so too. But they could also, like other ccTLD, make you provide residency proof and make the .io tld all about the territory, which is what’s its intended purpose was. Bottom line: we don’t know. So, it’s a little risk factor you need to be willing to make. Most will, no doubt. Still worth pointing out.
In a time when fewer and fewer ccTLDs require residency proofs and .io is an established profitable asset? Yeah, sure, they will make it all about an island with a tiny population because it makes perfect economic and political sense. ;)
I for one did not. The situation seems stable right now but we have to stay vigilant that those shenanigans are not repeated. When it does, the people will once again speak. Until then, it seems the .org TLD is safe for the moment. Any reason to believe otherwise?
Depending on your location, your country’s ccTLD may be better? If I have a French online business I probably don’t want my domain to be subject to US law.
I love the idea of a truly international non-commercial, non-profit TLD run for the public good. PIR is/was the closest we’ve had, maybe? They and their parent are US non-profits and subject to US courts though, right?
My personal domain is .org, so it’s subject to US courts and British courts (as that’s where I live). If I owned a .uk domain instead there would only be one set of laws in play, which I think would be better?
I know this is old, but on .xyz vs.org. The thing with .org was that it will turn into a for-profit, privately owned institution. From what I was able to find this has always been true for .xyz, which if that’s your concern is a worse choice.
A couple thousand people got screwed over several decades ago by the British Government for geopolitical reasons therefore you shouldn’t buy the .io TLD? I don’t think that’s reasonable. .io is a useful de-facto gTLD with explicit tech connotations unlike .xyz, and as stated in the articles linked through by the OP a proportion of its profits are reinvested in internet infrastructure. Some things are worthy of boycotting, but this is not one of them.
I agree, the OP is perfectly free to boycott .io if they so choose. And I am perfectly free to say that I think it’s hand-wringing and an over-reaction. On a site like lobste.rs, which is rarely overtly political, a skimming reader might think that there is a good technical reason to not choose .io, which as far as I know is not the case.
And I am perfectly free to say that I think it’s hand-wringing and an over-reaction
I won’t try and convince you otherwise :)
might think that there is a good technical reason to not choose .io, which as far as I know is not the case
Well….. [1]
Also, the future of the TLD being uncertain due to these geopolitical issues is quite a technical reason not to choose .io [2] (I added an update about this to the post)
There are technical reasons too: it’s a poorly run registry with bad record of nameserver uptime. The whole thing is held together with chewing gum and gaffer tape. I know this because of the “fun” I had going through ICB’s registrar accreditation process, where I spent most of the time getting them to fix bugs on their side.
A couple thousand people got screwed over several decades ago
Those people are still being screwed over, today. Denied their homeland, they are forced to remain stateless. Their buried dead lie in graves untended, their lands appropriated for CIA Black Sites and USAF weapons of mass destruction.
.io is a useful de-facto gTLD
It isn’t a gTLD, its a cock-a-mamey “ccTLD” run for the benefit of the same people who have stolen the Chagossians homeland.
Some things are worthy of boycotting, but this is not one of them.
What would be worthy of boycotting, O Sage of the Internet?
I’m pretty sure tech firms have been treating it as essentially a gTLD for quite a while now.
What would be worthy of boycotting
China for atrocities against Uyghur Muslims, or Saudi Arabia for atrocities in Yemen. Nations and entities which have murdered people en-masse instead of just displacing them.
A couple thousand people got screwed over several decades ago by the British Government for geopolitical reasons therefore you shouldn’t buy the .io TLD? I don’t think that’s reasonable.
I’m surprised (perhaps disappointed) you don’t think that’s reasonable. I can’t think of many better reasons to boycott something. You say “a couple thousand people” as though that’s a number that should be treated as insignificant.
You say “a couple thousand people” as though that’s a number that should be treated as insignificant.
The suffering of one person is a tragedy, the suffering of “a couple thousand people” is a statistic, right? Considering how shady this whole thing is I think it is completely fair to just vote with your wallet and chose a different TLD at no inconvenience to yourself.
A couple thousand people got screwed over several decades ago by the British Government for geopolitical reasons therefore you shouldn’t buy the .io TLD? I don’t think that’s reasonable
You probably would revise your position if you were one of those couple thousand who had a foreign colonial government stealing your wealth.
Beyond the problematic colonist mindset here, there are actual technical reasons, well documented at this point, and with a little google fu you can find quite a few horror stories.
Well, there’s .tech, .computer, .systems. So why .io? Just because it means “input/output”? If I make a techy website, why do I need my domain to be associated with “input/output”? Also, few people outside tech will get the .io reference. To others, it’s just confusing.
The problem with long, unusual TLDs like those ones is that they don’t immediately parse as URLs when one reads them - in fact, less technical people may not even realize they are URLs at all (I accept this may be a feature not a bug :p). They also break a lot of field validators. You are to some extent right about non-technical people not associating IO with input/output - I think many consider the domain synonymous with those simple online multiplayer games in the vein of agar.io.
Is there a better source for the claim that .io would pass to the Mauritians if the UK ceded the Chagos islands (which I doubt will happen, but that’s beside the point)? Cynically, I am inclined to think that this will not happen.
Cynically, I am inclined to think that this will not happen.
On your side of the fence as well. I’d like to see it happen, but… UK giving up a source of money like that?
In the end, it’s risk assessment. If you feel your brand perception will improve by using .io and the chances of .io going “territory only” mode are slim, no one is stopping you.
It’s difficult, but I’m trying to not to judge. What other people do with their domains is their business. I’m really only asking to take these issues into consideration when buying a domain.
Nobody is entitled to the TLD .io more than another. The system operator can distribute the names however they want. That they distribute some particularly lucrative names to some political entities is the operator’s prerogative.
It’s not like the Chagossians built the DNS, then the brits landed an expeditionary force and annexed .io. How is it a violation of ‘human rights’, unless it is human right to be the beneficiary of the domain name system. In which case, why haven’t I been paid my share?
is it still true that whois information cannot be anonymized on .us domains? Years ago I had a .us domain, but you had to provide a “real” address for whois (the reasoning was something ridiculous related to counter-terrorism). I ended up getting rid of it.
It should also be mentioned that the
.ioTLD’s nameservers themselves are poorly run and fall off the internet way more often that most TLDs. I believe offhand that if you want to offer a four-ish-nines SLA, using .io for your domain name would have by itself blown your downtime budget over the last few years. e.g. https://hackernoon.com/stop-using-io-domain-names-for-production-traffic-b6aa17eeac20The .xyz domains are also compatible with the Ethereum Name Service.
I feel like half of the .xyz domains hosts malware.
Yeah, .xyz domains are strongly associated with spam; probably because it’s such a cheap domain name. I don’t know if there are spam/SEO penalties against it, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Generally speaking, I wouldn’t really recommend using it for a serious project/product.
Also, myproject.xyz sounds weird to me, but perhaps that’s just me.
SEO penalties for it seem unlikely given https://abc.xyz/
If you’re mad at
.io, definitely don’t look into.ly:DYou know I’m gonna :)
It’s Libya, so…who knows where that money is going…
.devenforces HSTS TLD-widewhat does this have to do with .ly?
[Comment from banned user removed]
This is the first thing I think about when I see
.io:Stolen island and given to the US Army to use as an airfield.
Glad to see this article. Thanks
I have never thought about it, but now I totally agree with you.
Perhaps, but it still sounds childish and looks like something you’d choose if all other serious options are not available. At least that’s the feel I get and I’m certain a lot of other more casual user do too.
.iowas kind of lucky that it managed to get into the.com,.net,.co.uk, … group of common domain names.Yeah, good point. It must be my recent interactions with the indieweb, but… The internet is supposed to be fun and perhaps, to some degree, childish. For serious stuff, by all means, avoid .xyz, .wtf, .ooo, use .org, .com, .net, .tech, .news, .computer. There’s so much out there, even more meaningful than “input/output” :)
I couldn’t agree with this more. People have lost touch with this attitude.
Sorry to be so cynical, but it’s easy to lose touch with the fun internet when even personal blogs are packed with trackers and advertising and trying to monetize everybody.
Except for some relatively obscure corners, the light hearted and fun internet is dead. At this point, I doubt most people ever even experienced that part of it.
I strongly disagree. Let’s say in 1995 there were 10 websites and all of them were fun and childish. In 2000 maybe there were 10,000 websites and 50 of them were fun and childish. In 2020 there are 10 million websites and 10,000 of them are fun and childish. And I see people calling that a bad thing?!
The internet of the 90s didn’t go away, there’s just more built up around it. You can have that old internet back, just block Facebook and Google and hell even the top million sites. All you have to do is just not visit the sites you don’t like. When I hear people say the old internet is gone what I hear is that they want all websites to be like the old internet. There’s more “old internet” today than there ever has been and it’s easier to find those sites than it ever has been. I don’t go into my favorite ice cream shop and complain about all the fancy new flavors, because I can still buy plain old vanilla. Strawberry shortcake didn’t replace my favorite flavor, it’s all still there. The only difference now is that I have other flavors tempting me, flavors no one is forcing me to buy. Vanilla is still there.
Complaining that the good sites are stuck to the obscure corners ignores the fact that the 90s web was an obscure corner.
I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I was on the internet in 1995, and while there are things I miss, like the higher signal to noise ratio and less advertising, I don’t have anything against the modern web and I don’t have any interest in making the modern internet more like the internet of the past.
The point I was making is that the whole mindset of the web has changed, and even if you block millions of sites you’re not going to get the same open and “fun” experience as browsing back in the 90s. The mere fact that you have to put so much effort into it changes the experience.
It’s like trying to relive the 1870s by driving a horse and buggy in traffic on modern streets - maybe you’re getting some idea for what it was like, but it’s a long ways off from what it was really like back then.
I didn’t intend for my comment to be a pointed one, or to blame anyone. It was perhaps directed more at the people who run those blogs that are packed with trackers and advertising.
I recall when there was a minor uproar over
.xxx… at some point one must do away with childish things, no?Why, exactly?
It’s never to late to have a happy childhood. (That’s a quotation, yes. Fine book.)
I guess I’ll just share a link to a scene in a film that your comment made me think of:
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
This is actually a verse from the Bible:
https://biblehub.com/kjv/1_corinthians/13-11.htm
Is that a film where the man is a thoughtful person or more of a badass? If thoughtful you can make a thoughful argument. If badass, I suppose there isn’t much of an argument to be be made.
I agree. I own both snazz.xyz (because it’s fun, short, and fits well with the theme of my username) and a more professional website with my CV and academic information at [firstname][lastname].com. I think that owning both serves me well at a lower annual cost than a single .io.
I’m not sure if I missed something in the article, but is .xyz different from .org, .com etc. or is it just an alternative to .io with better availability of names?
.xyz is no different from .org, .com and I regret making .xyz the focus of my post… Any gTLD is great, as long you stand behind it!
This issue has cropped up before now and then.
I’m going to assume they’ll enjoy taking my money?
I would assume, and hope, so too. But they could also, like other ccTLD, make you provide residency proof and make the .io tld all about the territory, which is what’s its intended purpose was. Bottom line: we don’t know. So, it’s a little risk factor you need to be willing to make. Most will, no doubt. Still worth pointing out.
In a time when fewer and fewer ccTLDs require residency proofs and .io is an established profitable asset? Yeah, sure, they will make it all about an island with a tiny population because it makes perfect economic and political sense. ;)
I dunno, I’ve had
dsgn.iofor years and I love that domain.Wait, did folks already forget the recent fiasco around ICANN trying to sell away .org to a company that wanted to jack up rates?
I for one did not. The situation seems stable right now but we have to stay vigilant that those shenanigans are not repeated. When it does, the people will once again speak. Until then, it seems the .org TLD is safe for the moment. Any reason to believe otherwise?
No concrete reason, other than the pessimist in me just assumes this isn’t over and they’ll try again in a more subtle way than the first attempt.
They will try again, ICANN has shown itself to be untrustworthy.
The question isn’t whether .org is perfect. The question is whether anything else is better.
Depending on your location, your country’s ccTLD may be better? If I have a French online business I probably don’t want my domain to be subject to US law.
I love the idea of a truly international non-commercial, non-profit TLD run for the public good. PIR is/was the closest we’ve had, maybe? They and their parent are US non-profits and subject to US courts though, right?
My personal domain is .org, so it’s subject to US courts and British courts (as that’s where I live). If I owned a .uk domain instead there would only be one set of laws in play, which I think would be better?
I know this is old, but on .xyz vs.org. The thing with .org was that it will turn into a for-profit, privately owned institution. From what I was able to find this has always been true for .xyz, which if that’s your concern is a worse choice.
Or am I missing something?
A couple thousand people got screwed over several decades ago by the British Government for geopolitical reasons therefore you shouldn’t buy the .io TLD? I don’t think that’s reasonable. .io is a useful de-facto gTLD with explicit tech connotations unlike .xyz, and as stated in the articles linked through by the OP a proportion of its profits are reinvested in internet infrastructure. Some things are worthy of boycotting, but this is not one of them.
There’s a difference between “I urge people to reconsider” and “You’re a moron if you do this”. The author did the former, not the latter.
Everyone is free to boycott what they want.
I agree, the OP is perfectly free to boycott .io if they so choose. And I am perfectly free to say that I think it’s hand-wringing and an over-reaction. On a site like lobste.rs, which is rarely overtly political, a skimming reader might think that there is a good technical reason to not choose .io, which as far as I know is not the case.
I won’t try and convince you otherwise :)
Well….. [1]
Also, the future of the TLD being uncertain due to these geopolitical issues is quite a technical reason not to choose .io [2] (I added an update about this to the post)
[1] https://thehackerblog.com/the-io-error-taking-control-of-all-io-domains-with-a-targeted-registration/ [2] https://www.prolificlondon.co.uk/marketing-tech-news/tech-news/2019/05/future-popular-io-domains-question-over-british-empire-row
That first link was an interesting read, thanks! Good thing I’m too tight to buy .io domains anyway :p
There are technical reasons too: it’s a poorly run registry with bad record of nameserver uptime. The whole thing is held together with chewing gum and gaffer tape. I know this because of the “fun” I had going through ICB’s registrar accreditation process, where I spent most of the time getting them to fix bugs on their side.
Wait, I’ve thought this whole time that lobste.rs was a political wing in Kosovo/Serbia! /s
Those people are still being screwed over, today. Denied their homeland, they are forced to remain stateless. Their buried dead lie in graves untended, their lands appropriated for CIA Black Sites and USAF weapons of mass destruction.
It isn’t a gTLD, its a cock-a-mamey “ccTLD” run for the benefit of the same people who have stolen the Chagossians homeland.
What would be worthy of boycotting, O Sage of the Internet?
I’m pretty sure tech firms have been treating it as essentially a gTLD for quite a while now.
China for atrocities against Uyghur Muslims, or Saudi Arabia for atrocities in Yemen. Nations and entities which have murdered people en-masse instead of just displacing them.
I’m surprised (perhaps disappointed) you don’t think that’s reasonable. I can’t think of many better reasons to boycott something. You say “a couple thousand people” as though that’s a number that should be treated as insignificant.
The suffering of one person is a tragedy, the suffering of “a couple thousand people” is a statistic, right? Considering how shady this whole thing is I think it is completely fair to just vote with your wallet and chose a different TLD at no inconvenience to yourself.
You probably would revise your position if you were one of those couple thousand who had a foreign colonial government stealing your wealth.
Beyond the problematic colonist mindset here, there are actual technical reasons, well documented at this point, and with a little google fu you can find quite a few horror stories.
I don’t like using .io simply because it’s supposed to be a geography-specific domain. It’s abusing the spec to use it as a trendy tech domain, IMO.
Well, there’s .tech, .computer, .systems. So why .io? Just because it means “input/output”? If I make a techy website, why do I need my domain to be associated with “input/output”? Also, few people outside tech will get the .io reference. To others, it’s just confusing.
There’s also the “future of io” issue: https://www.prolificlondon.co.uk/marketing-tech-news/tech-news/2019/05/future-popular-io-domains-question-over-british-empire-row Who knows what will happen if the Mauritian government gets ownership of the TLD.
The problem with long, unusual TLDs like those ones is that they don’t immediately parse as URLs when one reads them - in fact, less technical people may not even realize they are URLs at all (I accept this may be a feature not a bug :p). They also break a lot of field validators. You are to some extent right about non-technical people not associating IO with input/output - I think many consider the domain synonymous with those simple online multiplayer games in the vein of agar.io.
Is there a better source for the claim that .io would pass to the Mauritians if the UK ceded the Chagos islands (which I doubt will happen, but that’s beside the point)? Cynically, I am inclined to think that this will not happen.
On your side of the fence as well. I’d like to see it happen, but… UK giving up a source of money like that?
In the end, it’s risk assessment. If you feel your brand perception will improve by using .io and the chances of .io going “territory only” mode are slim, no one is stopping you.
It’s difficult, but I’m trying to not to judge. What other people do with their domains is their business. I’m really only asking to take these issues into consideration when buying a domain.
This is exactly the kind of libertarian nonsense that seems to plague lobsters these days.
Nothing about his comment in any way pertains to libertarianism or libertarian philosophy.
Nobody is entitled to the TLD .io more than another. The system operator can distribute the names however they want. That they distribute some particularly lucrative names to some political entities is the operator’s prerogative.
It’s not like the Chagossians built the DNS, then the brits landed an expeditionary force and annexed .io. How is it a violation of ‘human rights’, unless it is human right to be the beneficiary of the domain name system. In which case, why haven’t I been paid my share?
It would behoove Americans (Citizen and Civilian alike!) to research
.us- https://www.about.us/benefitsI registered technomancy.us for my blog over a decade ago, then moved out of the US and felt pretty silly.
is it still true that whois information cannot be anonymized on .us domains? Years ago I had a .us domain, but you had to provide a “real” address for whois (the reasoning was something ridiculous related to counter-terrorism). I ended up getting rid of it.
Not sure, but I had the same issue and it made me uneasy. Perhaps a P.O. Box would work as the address?
Sadly it looks as if both
crapulo.usandbibulo.usare taken…Wasn’t there an arrangment were you had state abbrevs in
.usdomains? Like.ca.us,.la.us, etc?I support colonialism.
Uh, what?
I own a .io domain.
[Comment removed by author]