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Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

blog.gitbook.com

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Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#151

Post by thayne »

mbreese wrote: post #114

Aside from the Google domain issue (which is obviously a problem) -- why on earth would GitBook be hosting user-generated content under their corporate gitbook.com domain? The registrar issue is one problem here -- but I don't see this addressed in their post-mortem. I thought this was a well-known issue. You don't host user-generated content on the same domain that handles your corporate email. Because things like t…

I can say from experience that moving content to a different domain without breaking things for users can be atrociously difficult. So if you make a mistake in how you split domains in the beginning, it can be very expensive to rectify later. Can you imagine going to all your customers and saying "you know all those links you have to example.com? You're going to have to change all of them to point to example.org now."

They _should_ split their domains, and given this recent issue, it would make sense for them to prioritize that. But, well, easier said than done.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#152

Post by antoncohen »

Are they conflating domain registrars and DNS hosting? Did Google Domains block their domain at the registry level, like removing the NS records from roots? Or did they block is at the domain DNS level, like not resolving queries to Google nameservers for the domain?

I don't expect many startups or big companies use Google Domains for DNS hosting. AWS Route 53, Google Cloud DNS, or dedicated DNS hosting would be used for that. But I expect it is fairly common for startups to use Google Domains for domain registration.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#153

Post by grey-area »

mbreese wrote: post #114

Aside from the Google domain issue (which is obviously a problem) -- why on earth would GitBook be hosting user-generated content under their corporate gitbook.com domain? The registrar issue is one problem here -- but I don't see this addressed in their post-mortem. I thought this was a well-known issue. You don't host user-generated content on the same domain that handles your corporate email. Because things like t…

why on earth would GitBook be hosting user-generated content under their corporate gitbook.com domain?

You mean like news.ycombinator.com, nytimes.com, facebook.com or most blogs or forums ever created?

Also their entire business is serving user domains so if that goes down customers don't care about their marketing site, though the email vanishing would be annoying. What's to stop google doing this with any regular domain with user comments or content though?

I blame the registrar - having heard this horror story I'd never host with google domains.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#154

Post by shkkmo »

acituan wrote: post #142
mbreese wrote: post #114

Aside from the Google domain issue (which is obviously a problem) -- why on earth would GitBook be hosting user-generated content under their corporate gitbook.com domain? The registrar issue is one problem here -- but I don't see this addressed in their post-mortem. I thought this was a well-known issue. You don't host user-generated content on the same domain that handles your corporate email. Because things like t…

Does it really make it less of a problem if they had a separate domain for corporate and it was only the user content going down? Serving user content can as well be part of a service’s core product and registrar induced downtime is a big enough problem. Building and running anti-abuse tech works in proportion to the money put in. Can a small player really compete with Google’s anti-abuse investments? No. Save for a…

> Does it really make it less of a problem if they had a separate domain for corporate and it was only the user content going down? Serving user content can as well be part of a service’s core product and registrar induced downtime is a big enough problem.

Yes, it really does. Not losing your ability to receive email will help resolve the problem.

> Serving user content can as well be part of a service’s core product and registrar induced downtime is a big enough problem.

If that is the case, then choosing a registrar that provides quality, timely and responsive support when dealing abusive content complaints should be on the top of your priorities.

> Building and running anti-abuse tech works in proportion to the money put in. Can a small player really compete with Google’s anti-abuse investments?

In this case the small company did find the content first through their own anti-abuse systems.

I'm not sure how this become anti-competitive. Google may have a monopoly on many things, but DNS registry is definitely not one of them.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#155

Post by cube00 »

techntoke wrote: post #149
wolco wrote: post #108

Never use google as a registrar. Support someone else. The internet is bigger than google.

Support who? Government has power to take down any domain, especially TLDs and registrars in the US. People should be supporting decentralized DNS and name servers if they want to be safe from takedowns.

If the government is taking down a domain at least there's a human behind it.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#156

Post by mbreese »

thayne wrote: post #151
mbreese wrote: post #114

Aside from the Google domain issue (which is obviously a problem) -- why on earth would GitBook be hosting user-generated content under their corporate gitbook.com domain? The registrar issue is one problem here -- but I don't see this addressed in their post-mortem. I thought this was a well-known issue. You don't host user-generated content on the same domain that handles your corporate email. Because things like t…

I can say from experience that moving content to a different domain without breaking things for users can be atrociously difficult. So if you make a mistake in how you split domains in the beginning, it can be very expensive to rectify later. Can you imagine going to all your customers and saying "you know all those links you have to example.com? You're going to have to change all of them to point to example.org now.…

I imagine it will be painful to split their domains. But, I was surprised to see that wasn't mentioned in their post-mortem. Even if they didn't plan on doing it, I think that it would have made sense to mention.

I imagine their main paying customers would start demanding this change though. They are probably using a custom domain, so whatever domain GitBook chooses to use should be irrelevant for them (in theory, but in practice, who knows...).

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#157

Post by dannyw »

techntoke wrote: post #149
wolco wrote: post #108

Never use google as a registrar. Support someone else. The internet is bigger than google.

Support who? Government has power to take down any domain, especially TLDs and registrars in the US. People should be supporting decentralized DNS and name servers if they want to be safe from takedowns.

The pirate bay disagrees with you.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#158

Post by vpzom »

artificial wrote: post #28
abc-xyz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Namecheap dumping personal info without informing their customer ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18063667 ), Namecheap threatening to shut down a site if the customer doesn’t delete two images posted there within 24 hours ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14139288 )

Which registrar is recommended?

I've been using Porkbun for a while now

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#159

Post by dannyw »

ggm wrote: post #77

Having just moved 3 personal domains -> into google domains you can imagine I find this quite concerning. I wonder how the domain registry community at large feels about this? ICANN exists, domains are subject to a legal agreement with ICANN, and it has customer-protection concerns surely?

I can tell you about my experiences with Namecheap when I used fake WHOIS info for my privacy and someone reported me.

Their support staff said that due to ICANN policy, they must have accurate WHOIS info, so they have changed my WHOIS information but also added WhoisGuard to the domain so the details are not visible unless someone gets a Panama court order.

My trust in them increased substantially.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#160

Post by dannyw »

notriddle wrote: post #145
_jal wrote: post #109

You know, this is interesting. Google is taking something close to an editorial stance here - it is clear that they take action against their customers based on content on their sites. Some might consider that sites with controversial content who use Google as their registrar and not taken down are considered reviewed-and-OK by Google. Others might start pressuring Google to expand the nature of content they find una…

Phishing is not "controversial." It's illegal, and it undermines the principle of informed consent that meaningful freedom requires. Even if Google isn't legally obligated to take down phishing domains, I refuse to be so anal as to complain about it. It is everybody's job to make the internet safe and usable. Too bad Google does a terrible job of it. No way am I signing up for a Google Domain in the future.

Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with taking down phishing sites. The problem is when you misapply the restriction and take down a whole domain of a platform.
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