I still don't understand why insane people use ccTLDs for the characters, rather than due to the national law. It's like picking a flag of convenience for your ship due to the pretty colors of the flag.
The reason is that all good .com domains are taken or squatted. Also, ships don't use flags of convenience for their colors but for laws that are advantageous to them.
-1 for defeating a strawman argument in the second sentence:
Also, ships don't use flags of convenience for their colors but for laws that are advantageous to them.
The parent posting didn't question that. On the contrary, the fact that ships chose their flag by law instead of color - that was exactly the parent posting's point.
Lack of domain names isn't as much of a problem as it was 5-10 years ago, due to:
1) Mobile apps
2) Search (especially search-in-address-bar)
3) The fundamentally large namespace
I'd still rather have a domain like "tryfoobar.com" early on rather than foobar.ix or even worse, foob.ar or foubar.com. Provided foobar.com isn't a competitor, porn site, etc., and that I can make efforts to buy foobar.com/net/org/co.uk/jp/etc. with time if successful.
The only strong argument for (ab)using a ccTLD, IMO is URL shorteners.
There is no "type in traffic" aspect to a ship's chosen flag like there is with a domain name. Similarly there is no concept of a building a brand around a ship the way there is for a domain/business.
It's pretty clear that there are some places to just write off (Libya .ly, io, ga, etc.), and then, if you have anything even vaguely questionable, use a domain name in your country of operation.
If you're operating from NZ, you're already exposed to NZ law. A .co.nz domain name adds no additional risk. You may need to pick your country based on favorable laws -- i.e. don't run a gambling site from the US, and don't be a US citizen. HK is actually one of the better choices. The US is actually good for a lot of things, too.
If you're in the US, .com/.net/.org are all roughly equivalent, although I still think .com is the best overall tradeoff. There are some differences in individual registry ToS, but every one I've read is flexible enough as to be meaningless if they want to do something.
It's probably fair to say the US is the biggest risk for anyone operating in a non-US country except for their own government, so .com is a "safe" backup choice as well.
If you're really worried, the only safe choice is .onion :) Safe from having large numbers of users, too! (you'd be better off at that point distributing some kind of client software, or running multiple pop-up frontends accessing a common API, and then making it easy to move the API around using client-side failover.)
The .nz namespace is pretty good, as it is independently administered from the government (http://dnc.org.nz). It's just very hard to see .nz being adopted by startups to create pithy URLs.
For those that don't know, Vivendi is a French conglomerate that has strong holdings in music, movies, TV, and video games. Their assets include Universal Music Group and a 61% stake in Activision Blizzard.
I realize that Gabon isn't the US, but having something taken away before any crime is even committed. That seems a bit extreme. What's next, pre-crime units?
My understanding is that his domain registration was invalidated or revoked because he made a public statement that he would use this domain to circumvent anti-piracy laws. I'm sure it's in the Registrar's TOS that using domains for criminal enterprises is not allowed.
Seems like a less extreme course of action would be to just send him a warning that, should he do so, his domain would be revoked (possibly without notice).
Though, as someone pointed out, if you follow the purse strings you hit Vivendi which is deeply invested in copyright. Seems likely that someone realized that they had access to kill his .ga domain, sent out the relevant requests, and extreme (rather than measured) action was taken.
> "I have instructed my departments... to immediately suspend the site www.me.ga," said Communication Minister Blaise Louembe, according to the AFP French news agency.
> Communication Minister Blaise Louembe, [said] he wanted to "protect intellectual property rights" and "fight cyber crime effectively". "Gabon cannot serve as a platform or screen for committing acts aimed at violating copyrights, nor be used by unscrupulous people,"
Do they? No one seems to be using them despite the fact that centralized DNS seems to be fatally flawed. Maybe it just really isn't that big of a problem when put in context.
The 'people with money' could make it happen if they wanted to, but since they have money, they're not too concerned about the government taking things away.
The little guy has more to lose than the big guys, but few people are going to jump through hoops for the little guy.
