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dont use fucking ccTLDs

estimated reading time: 3 - 4 min

ccTLDs or country code top-level domains. all those "cool" looking domains like .tv, .fm, .am, .co, .ai, etc... all of those actually belong to countries. and weren't initially meant for the public use. rather, they were meant for their countries' domestic usage.

however, due to fortunate circumstances, with ISO codes, or precisely ISO-3166. some of those countries got domains that "make sense" in english, making those countries rich(er). especially in .tv's case (tuvalu), associated with television. i highly advise against registering a ccTLD doman unless:

why i say such ridiculous things? don't those countries let everyone register their domains? yes. and there isn't anything inherently bad about those domains. the problem is those are TIED to a country, or in some cases a region. countries, regions, teritories, as a human concept aren't permanent. they can exist for decades, centuries; well beyond your own life-expectancy, yet, they can also disappear in an instant. and what happens when a place ceases to exist? ICANN *thanos snaps* (removes) that ccTLD from the registry (for some reason .su is still allowed to exist... but that's beyond the point)! leaving you without your slice of the internet. you'd have to start fresh, rebuilding links, and everything... no one wants to lose everything right? while there is a grace period, after that period is over, that domain extension is likely gone forever.

so what's the problem?

"so whats the problem", you may innocently say, "its unlikely to happen in my lifetime". but that is where you're wrong. not only it has had happened in relatively recent history, but it is also about to happen again.

the most recent removal was that of of .yu (serbia and montenengro) in 2010. this was just 14 years ago. even though yugoslavia dissolved in 1992, the ccTLD survived for a bit longer. in the grand scheme not much was lost when the .yu domain died, no one other than people from my region were affected. however, with the domain that could be deleted next, the consequences may be catasrophic.

i am sure you've heard of the .io domain. a huge portion of tech, or tech-adjacent websites, blogs, projects, and startups have used, or still is using this domain extension. as io means input/output. however, there's always a "however". .io doesn't actually mean input/out, but it is a domain given to british indian ocean territory. okay, that's nice and dandy, but what does this have to do with domain deletion? well, there is the fucking problem.

unlike with yugoslavia, a country didn't dissolve, the colonizers (the brits) are giving this territory back to mauritius. as such, british indian ocean territory will cease to exists as an entity, this leaves the existance of .io murky.

so what does this actually mean for .io?

its likely fucked—not right now, but in a few years. unless something changes. ICANN's policy on ccTLDs is quite easy to understand.

your country or region has to be on the ISO-3166 list and the ccTLD has to match the code ISO gives to you. if the code drops, you have five years to transition to a new TLD and old one is retired. this can be extended to ten years max.

so there are some question raised: will the territory (if renamed) keep the IO assignment on the ISO list? will the archipelago continue to qualify as a distinct territory? If they simply becomes part of mauritius, and no longer recognized as a distinct territory, .io is, to put it bluntly very much fucked. hell, mauritius could likely request a new ISO code, if it remains a distinct territory. which would mean gaining a new ccTLD, but losing this one. if it fully becomes mauritius, we lose this TLD, and gain no new ones.

our first hope is the fact that ICANN still hasn't removed .su and allows it to exist. our second hope is in the currently unpublished, proposed treaty between uk and mauritius. this remains to be seen.

as you can see, you can very easily get fucked in the ass hard. so just don't fucking register ccTLDs for your projects.


got more to say? email me: hi[at]riri[dot]my

posted on: 2024-10-10 12:52 AM