The story of .io

#1

Post by ingve » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 7:24 PM UTC

The story of .io
citizen-ex.com

Re: The story of .io

#2

Post by tdaltonc » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 9:16 PM UTC

Is there a policy for what happens to ccTLD if a country changes its name or disappears?

Re: The story of .io

#3

Post by dpeck » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 9:26 PM UTC

tdaltonc wrote: post #2

Is there a policy for what happens to ccTLD if a country changes its name or disappears?

just a datapoint, .su is still around and still used by some universities.

Re: The story of .io

#4

Post by duskwuff » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 9:26 PM UTC

tdaltonc wrote: post #2

Is there a policy for what happens to ccTLD if a country changes its name or disappears?

Not strictly speaking; it hasn't happened often enough for a policy to be established. The ccTLDs .cs (Czechoslovakia), .dd (East Germany), .yu (Yugoslavia), and .zr (Zaire) were all dissolved some time after the reorganization/renaming of their countries. However, this hasn't always been the case. For instance, .su (Soviet Union) continues to be used today.

Re: The story of .io

#5

Post by ryan90v » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 9:28 PM UTC

tdaltonc wrote: post #2

Is there a policy for what happens to ccTLD if a country changes its name or disappears?

Check out the story of the .su (Soviet Union) domain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.su http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/may/31/ussr-cyber...

Re: The story of .io

#6

Post by pavel_lishin » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 9:34 PM UTC

ryan90v wrote: post #5

tdaltonc wrote: post #2

Is there a policy for what happens to ccTLD if a country changes its name or disappears?

Check out the story of the .su (Soviet Union) domain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.su http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/may/31/ussr-cyber...

> The .su domain was invented by the then-19-year-old Finnish student Petri Ojala.

"Invented" seems like the wrong word to use here.

Re: The story of .io

#7

Post by dbarlett » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 9:59 PM UTC

tdaltonc wrote: post #2

Is there a policy for what happens to ccTLD if a country changes its name or disappears?

.an (Netherlands Antilles) is being phased out [1]:

    The .AN top-level domain for the Netherlands Antilles is no longer eligible for
    continued delegation, as it is no longer an ISO 3166-1 two-letter code. In
    accordance with the code’s removal from the ISO 3166-1 standard, the ISO 3166
    Maintenance Agency asks users of the standard to “stop using [the code] ASAP”†.
    
    As discussed in detail in the consideration of a similar case of the .YU
    top-level domain, ICANN’s role is to be an independent technical coordinator of
    the domain name system. As such, the ISO 3166-1 standard was chosen as the
    arbiter for what is, and what is not, a basis for country-code domains. In order
    to retain consistency with the standard, ICANN coordinates the removal of the
    .AN domain in conjunction with the transition to its successor domains. In such
    cases, ICANN asks the current operator to perform an orderly wind-down and
    transition process.
    
    The proposed sponsoring organisation for .CW intends to continue to operate the
    .AN domain while transitional arrangements are executed. These transitional
    arrangements include provisions for registrants in Curaçao to transfer
    registrations to .CW; and for registrants in Sint Maarten to transfer
    registrations to .SX. The applicant calls for a phased transition to be
    concluded over a period of three years, after which time the .AN domain will be
    fully retired.

[1] http://www.iana.org/reports/2011/cw-report-20111003.html

Re: The story of .io

#8

Post by mfkp » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 10:47 PM UTC

Another interesting point is that .io domains started to become more popular after Google decided to categorize them as Generic ccTLDs [1] (I believe in 2013). Before this, .io domains weren't great because of Google's algorithm taking region into account, and SEO was nigh impossible.

[1] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1347922?hl=en

Re: The story of .io

#9

Post by MichaelGG » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 10:54 PM UTC

I don't see what the issue is here, apart from non-DNS things (kicking people out, etc). If Chagos got autonomy, it wouldn't be keeping .io as its ccTLD - what sense would that make? And if Britain wants to have .io, they'd just need some other random island with enough of a presence to justify the country code.

Phrasing it as if somehow .io belongs to these people is simple intellectual dishonesty.

Re: The story of .io

#10

Post by quadrangle » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 10:55 PM UTC

Fascinating story.

I personally wish the article had gone a little further into being snarky, perhaps subtly, in recognizing how stupid, meaningless, unfunny, and unclever the idea of .io for "in/out" is for domains. Most websites and all computers do input/output and there's nothing interesting about that fact. I think it's a dumb trend, and I have an irrational, emotional dislike of the suggestion that it is good in any way for all these annoying startups and their dumb domains. end rant