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The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

benmetcalfe.com

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Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#11
I'm not sure if this is a real change to the nic.ly policy or not. It's tricky. They say it was adult content. While vb.ly might not have had any, it was co-owned by Violet Blue, who while she is many wonderful things, she is not islamic.

Violet Blue's Website: http://www.tinynibbles.com/

It's not just Libya, the US govt which has ultimate control over .com, .org, .net, .us, .gov, etc... also has some crazy ideas. Just look at how the senate last week wanted to start revoking domain names willy nilly.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#12
post #4

And to add to all of that: If you register a local version of any domain, be it .ly or anything else make sure that you understand that domains registered as such are subject to both local laws and the whims of the TLD authority. This is one of the reasons I've always stuck to .com, .net and .org, just registering a .nl domain for example requires me to jump through all kinds of hoops, and is more expensive to boot.…

> registering a .nl domain for example requires me to jump through all kinds of hoops, and is more expensive to boot

This is quite interesting, because in Germany we have the exact opposite. Here, .de domains are preferable to .com/.net/.org, because .de domains are cheaper, registered more quickly with less bureaucracy and provide better data privacy for the domain holder.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#14
post #2

I have two 3-letter .ly domains. Do you think it's a bad idea to use them for anything serious now?

Everything in business has a risk associated with it. Domain names are not excluded from that analysis.

The risk with .ly domains has been discussed before. This is just evidence that the risk exists and this evidence should be used to recalculate that risk.

As mentioned in a similar reply in this thread a Plan B should be considered. Any sufficiently large website or business should have some disaster recovery plans, regardless and this is just another page that needs to be created for that plan

What a Plan B for a domain name is? I'm not quite sure but, del.icio.us delicious.com is an example.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#15
post #12
post #4

And to add to all of that: If you register a local version of any domain, be it .ly or anything else make sure that you understand that domains registered as such are subject to both local laws and the whims of the TLD authority. This is one of the reasons I've always stuck to .com, .net and .org, just registering a .nl domain for example requires me to jump through all kinds of hoops, and is more expensive to boot.…

> registering a .nl domain for example requires me to jump through all kinds of hoops, and is more expensive to boot This is quite interesting, because in Germany we have the exact opposite. Here, .de domains are preferable to .com/.net/.org, because .de domains are cheaper, registered more quickly with less bureaucracy and provide better data privacy for the domain holder.

In nl the TLD admin is called SIDN, which officially stands for Stichting Internet Domeinregistratie Nederland, but the situation was/is so bad that they got the nickname Stichting Internet Dominatie Nederland which stands for something entirely different.

How it can be 'more quickly' then typing in a name in a form and clicking a mouse is a mystery to me, what do you mean by that?

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#16

While I'm as against Sharia law as the next privileged westerner/godless heathen, I found the complaint that the rules weren't in English really amusing. Why should a country's national ccTLD rules be in English? It's a domain space for that country, not for making convenient short URLs for Americans to use on Twitter. Why would a country run under Sharia law want to allow services like bit.ly and others to use their…

> 'it's our internet and we're just letting you weird foreigners use it'

No, he's warning others that because Libya control this particular TLD, and police it using a set of laws that aren't available in English, it's to be considered unsafe for those who do not read Arabic.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#18

While I'm as against Sharia law as the next privileged westerner/godless heathen, I found the complaint that the rules weren't in English really amusing. Why should a country's national ccTLD rules be in English? It's a domain space for that country, not for making convenient short URLs for Americans to use on Twitter. Why would a country run under Sharia law want to allow services like bit.ly and others to use their…

It's not just people from the US who read English, you know. Here in Europe, you often find people from two different non-English speaking countries conversing in English because it's what they have in common.

I think it's ultimately a bit of a caveat emptor situation though: if they're not going to publish their rules in English, it means you're likely to get screwed.

Which is to be expected from a dictatorship run by a guy who dresses like the Beatles on the cover of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts club band.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#19
post #10
post #4

And to add to all of that: If you register a local version of any domain, be it .ly or anything else make sure that you understand that domains registered as such are subject to both local laws and the whims of the TLD authority. This is one of the reasons I've always stuck to .com, .net and .org, just registering a .nl domain for example requires me to jump through all kinds of hoops, and is more expensive to boot.…

Couldn't agree more. If the .com is not available DON'T DO IT! I heard about http://wordoid.com/ here on HN -- it's a wonderful little webapp that lets you generate domain names that "sound natural" in a select list of languages and that (optionally) contain specific words. In the "more options" you can filter out domains where both .com and .net are unavailable (it would be better to just filter unavailable .coms bu…

I think that this advice only applies to commercial sites. I have several personal domains such as Richard.sDoma.in and Richard.sMyNa.me which are far superior to any .com domain name.

Personal users are only just starting to get into having a personal URL to hosting their own id and blog etc. and with over 2 billion internet users and only around 140million registered domains, I think attitudes will change quickly. At least for the personal user.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#20
It should be noted that all vb.ly links still exist but do not function at this time. We have the database intact, and will restore your shortened URLs momentarily with a suitable domain.

It's nice that they're doing that but it's essentially worthless. The url's in the database have no value, it's the ones spread all over other people's servers, and the work that went into doing it that have value.

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