Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Never buy a .online domain

0xsid.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 513 posts

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#261

Post by axus »

jeroenhd wrote: post #112
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #18

> The domain ... has been suspended due to its blacklisting on Google Safe Browsing Et voilà ... ! this is precisely the slippery slope I warned about a decade ago. The indirect censorship becomes direct censorship, defeating all the arguments about the morality of such a list. And: > Not adding the domain to Google Search Console immediately. I don't need their analytics and wasn't really planning on having any cont…

This is 100% on Radix, not on Google. Google and Microsoft can (and probably should) have a registry of known-abusive websites. False positives are inevitable, so these should be taken with a grain of salt, but in most cases they're correct. Their lists are a lot more reliable than those from the "traditional" antivirus/anti-scam vendors that will list anything remotely strange to pump up their numbers. The external…

I read your comment as agreeing with the article: "Never buy a .online domain".

And Google has the right to publish a list, there should be more lists not less. But Google was at fault for not correcting their blacklist. Until the article appeared on Hacker News, this was not 0% on Google. A small, correctable mistake, but they deserved a tiny bit of blame.

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#262

Post by jcalvinowens »

horsawlarway wrote: post #250
jcalvinowens wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't "oops we made a mistake" actually a valid defense to libel in most US states? I thought you had to prove it was intentional to some extent? Or reckless/negligent IANAL

Google takes no action to review the reports that their warnings are false until you sign up for Google products (namely - registering the site in their search console). I reported a falsely flagged site repeatedly for weeks with absolutely no action from them. Mozilla and Microsoft both did actually remove the warnings after the reports (Edge and Firefox stopped displaying the warning). Google did not. Google strong…

I'm not defending google, I'm just wondering if claiming libel is barking up the wrong legal tree.

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#263

Post by retired »

otterley wrote: post #100
account42 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's both's fault. Google for making false and clearly damaging statements (libel) and Radix for acting on them.

(IAAL but this is not legal advice.) It’s not libel. Defamation requires a false statement of fact. Marking a website as “unsafe” is an opinion.

Marking a website as "unsafe" in Chrome is equal to standing in front of the door of a small restaurant and blocking 71% of people going inside. Everyone first has to agree that they will enter the restaurant at their own risk.

That is more than an opinion. Chrome has a monopoly and should act accordingly. Blocking entry to a website should be a last resort, not just because someone didn't add their website to the whitelist.

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#264

Post by garganzol »

bjt wrote: post #251

It's not about the .online TLD being "weird". The problem is that it was free. That's going to attract a swarm of fraudsters, spammers, etc, and then turn into a strong "this is probably fraud" signal in all kinds of fraud scoring systems. There are lots of domains out there other than .com that are just fine.

Probably this is what's happened here. Either the OP's domain was previously used for shady activities, or the almost-free stigma puts the whole .TLD in the grey list of high-risk assets. Probably is also explains the nuclear behavior of the registrar (suspension).

Free is good, but sometimes it's not.

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#265

Post by habinero »

tshaddox wrote: post #195
otterley wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(IAAL but this is not legal advice.) It’s not libel. Defamation requires a false statement of fact . Marking a website as “unsafe” is an opinion .

That sounds like a spurious distinction. Pretty sure you can’t say “Person X is a murderer” and then say “well I’m only expressing my opinion, and in my opinion if you do something that annoys me that qualifies as murder.”

Nope, not in the US. It is perfectly legal to say, for example, "Kyle Rittenhouse is a murderer" despite him being acquitted. You're entirely free to disagree with the result, that is an opinion. Any opinion based on public knowledge is ok. It doesn't even have to be reasonable or rational.

What you can't do is imply non-public knowledge, aka "I heard from my cousin who works in law enforcement that Kyle murdered a hobo when he was 12 but the records were sealed", or state specific facts that can be proven true or false: "Kyle murdered a hobo on September 11, 2018 out back of the 7-11 in Gainesville, FL"

The standard for libel/slander is much, much higher than people think. It's extremely difficult to meet them, and for public figures, it's almost impossible.

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#266

Post by volkercraig »

ntoskrnl_exe wrote: post #248
nativeit wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re confessing to several actual felonies here, may want to change strategies.

I'm curious if this would really be considered unlawful access, since only pure idiocy and no hacking/scamming/etc were involved.

It would be in Canada, but our "misuse of computer" charge is overly broad and never been well tested.

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#267

Post by volkercraig »

mzajc wrote: post #179
iamnothere wrote: post #20

The registrar relying on Google Safe Browsing as a “trigger” for suspension is the most horrifying thing I’ve seen in a while. This basically makes the entire TLD unviable for serious use.

.online is one of the many TLDs that charge a dollar for registration but bump the price to $30-$35 for renewal. So far, this seems like a good signal to tell apart serious TLDs and ones just preying on customers who sort by cheapest (or capitalizing on one-off phishing domains).

I had a .fun domain that I was using to host a small project and they pulled that on me, I just let it expire and killed the project.

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#268

Post by thayne »

Google should really be seeing some anti-trust action for requiring you to create an account with them on their search console in order to contest being added to a blacklist used by all the major browsers.

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#269

Post by AtreidesTyrant »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #22

Oh man. The infinite loops of impossible verification by large companies that should know better are massive pain peeve of mine. This goes right to the top for me, along the ubiquitous "please verify your account" emails with NO OPTION to click "that's NOT me, somebody misused my email". Either people who do this for a living have no clue how to do their job, or, depressingly more likely, their goals are just complet…

happens with apple products all the time

Re: Never buy a .online domain

#270

Post by habinero »

hamdingers wrote: post #147
otterley wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Claiming bad/malicious/etc site is 100% libel. No it isn't. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/defamation Please, use words correctly.

The words in your link do not support the words in your comment. Don't be snarky unless you are certain you're correct. > a plaintiff must show four things: 1) a false statement purporting to be fact; 2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person; 3) fault amounting to at least negligence; and 4) damages, or some harm caused to the reputation of the person or entity who is the subject of the sta…

It does. "Unsafe" is not a fact, it's an opinion.
Post reply on HN