ICANN and its consequences have been a disaster for the internet namespace.
I CANN, YOU CANN, Yes We CANN!
.self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting
71–80 of 410 posts
Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting
#72Remember when the .tk TLD became free 20 years ago ? Every hobbyist took one, then scammers followed, then Facebook and antiviruses started blocking it. I remember publishing a website for a class on my .tk domain, the teacher couldn't open it and I almost got a failing grade because of it.
>One Person, One Subdomain
Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting
#73Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
We don't necessarily, however there are many benefits for doing so. We could simply purchase a domain and then build our initiative beneath it but then everything we do would be beneath that domain, meaning there would be two dots in what is our effective TLD. That would also mean we are a bit beholden to whichever TLD we are beneath and also whichever registrar we purchased our domain from. With the services we hope…
.duckdns.org. works fine, and being "beholden" to ICANN is no worse than being a client of one of the big traditional gTLDs. If you want "one person, one name", well, .name is there for that. It's a commons-pollution problem. Are we going to have to start thinking of every word with a dot in the middle as a potential name? IMHO, a new gTLD is justifiable only when there's some concrete differentiator attached to it,…
> It's a commons-pollution problem. Are we going to have to start thinking of every word with a dot in the middle as a potential name? IMHO, a new gTLD is justifiable only when there's some concrete differentiator attached to it, e.g. .local indicating mDNS, or .it indicating "Italy"
So the new gTLD round is open right now, we're getting more TLDs whether we like it or not. Our goal is to make one that has features built-in which cater to the self-hosting use case. So that is our key differentiator, that every endpoint leveraging our TLD should be someone's small-scale homelab setup.
> I have no objection to providing people with free subdomains under whatever assignment scheme you guys are using, but wouldn't .net have worked too, and been a lot cheaper?
Technically yes it could work, but given the suite of features we'd like to build into our TLD, it would make things more difficult if we didn't own it. We would be dependent on external parties for our root domain, the root of trust for TLS certificates, all users' subdomains would have an extra dot etc.
Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting
#75https://hccf.onmy.cloud/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/dot-self.... > Everyone entitled to a subdomain at no cost How are you going to pay for the (substantial) cost of running a TLD without registration fee revenue? Is this a loss leader for other services? Are you operating on a 100% donation model? > No parking, squatting, or reselling How do you plan to tell the difference between a parked/squatted domain and one in…
> How are you going to pay for the (substantial) cost of running a TLD without registration fee revenue? Is this a loss leader for other services? Are you operating on a 100% donation model? We plan on operating the domain as a public good and are actively seeking sponsors to help fund us. Think of it as a similar model to ISRG and LetsEncrypt. > No parking, squatting, or reselling Our rule of one person per subdomai…
How is one person per subdomain enforceable? How is a person uniquely identified and tracked?
Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting
#76It simply cannot be both free and free choice of domain.
If it has both, it will be squatted to uselessness, and blocked everywhere because of phishing scams everywhere.
You can either make the domains cost money, which seems counter to the entire point, or disallow choosing the domain, instead handing out free what3words style names.
Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How are you going to pay for the (substantial) cost of running a TLD without registration fee revenue? Is this a loss leader for other services? Are you operating on a 100% donation model? We plan on operating the domain as a public good and are actively seeking sponsors to help fund us. Think of it as a similar model to ISRG and LetsEncrypt. > No parking, squatting, or reselling Our rule of one person per subdomai…
How is one person per subdomain enforceable? How is a person uniquely identified and tracked?
My guess is by using ID verification similar to how I do it on https://onlyhumanhub.com/
Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting
#78Hi there. I've done a bit of work on specifying human-centric identity goals for the internet over the last 10 years. May I suggest you look at Microsoft Vega? https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/vega-zero-know... (I have no affiliation).
In brief, I think they aim to solve the most important needs for online identity-gated services in a maximally private way.
For instance, I'd like to see .self offer the following: a single domain to any person in the world with identity blinded. I can imagine two 'tranches': say xxx.v.self for 'verified' and xxx.u.self for 'unverified'.
Both would use a Zero Knowledge proof to confirm they had not already registered a domain; verified would register with you guys or a data broker some PII in case it was needed for verification / checks / etc, while unverified would maintain the promise of one domain = one person, but not allow the TLD or registrars to be able to unblind which person it is.
Use cases like this would be really fantastic. And, obviously could be tested out and tried on a normal domain name while you make your pitch, and put in for the auction / however ICANN is currently managing TLD launches.
Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting
#79https://hccf.onmy.cloud/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/dot-self.... > Everyone entitled to a subdomain at no cost How are you going to pay for the (substantial) cost of running a TLD without registration fee revenue? Is this a loss leader for other services? Are you operating on a 100% donation model? > No parking, squatting, or reselling How do you plan to tell the difference between a parked/squatted domain and one in…
It's not clear whether they're actually talking about domains or subdomains there, which is a worrying sign from a potential registrar.
Any domain that isn't one of the Top Level Domains is also a subdomain.
Re: .self: A new top-level domain designed to support self-hosting
#80.me is cooler, but... That all the cool 2-letter TLDs are designated as country codes was an extraordinary mistake that will have unpredictable and devastating consequences long into the future.
I think letting anyone make any TLD is a bigger mistake.
.zip .pdf .mp3
I'd like to thank Caribbean island of Anguilla for having a ccTLD that helps identify which websites aren't worth your time in one quick look.