Tiny ccTLDs - Who Should You Register With? 48
.AS : American Samoa. American Territory. Pop ~68,000. The registry is based in New York City and makes no mention its relationship to American Samoa, or what if any benefits accrue to the people of AS in exchange for the sale of their TLD space. Cost: $45/year. Whois: limited.
.CX : Christmas Island. Home of the dreaded goatse. Part of the Indian Ocean Territories of Australia, pop ~ 3,000. Recently shafted by the bankruptcy of Planet Three, nic.cx is now (according to its website) "a community owned Christmas Island non profit company." $9.60 of every reg. fee goes to the "Christmas Island Information Economy Development Trust," underwriting the cost of internet service on the island. Service which is currently really limited (2 hours/day of dial-up for $25/mo). Cost: $37.40/year. Whois: yes
.HM : The Heard and McDonald Islands. Australian External Territory, Pop: 0. An antarctic island group, mostly covered in glaciers, generally off-limits to visitors. A UN world heritage site. The nic is managed by an Australian guy, and the reg fee pays for the costs of running the registry. All [surname].hm addresses are unavailable, as those have been sold to the mysterious www.my.hm email service. Probably the most morally neutral ccTLD to grab a domain in, since there are no residents to disenfranchise. Cost: $35/year. Whois: none
.PN : Pitcairn Island. British Overseas Territory. Home of 44 descendants of the Bounty mutineers (half of whom are currently under investigation for more recent unsavory acts). Supposedly the sale of domains will help to bring internet access to the island, (they currently have limited, $3.50/min satellite connection, courtesy of a seismic monitoring station on the island. Cost for a domain: auction. Whois: broken
.PS : Palestinian Territories. With only 50 domains registered, the .ps namespace is wide open. It's the only NIC I can think of that's likely to be bombed/raided/otherwise reduced by a military force, since it's located in beautiful Ramallah. Given the US Govt's current mindset, owning a .ps domain could also make you a Person of Interest to any number of three-letter agencies. Cost: $45/year. Whois: limited
.SH : St. Helena Island and .AC : Ascension Island. British Overseas Territories with a population of ~6,000 and ~1,000 respectively. Jamestown, St Helena is the capitol from which the islands of St Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha are governed. The NIC is run out of London and provides free name service and registration for anyone with residency. Ascension is an an incredibly well-networked island for its size. Cost: $100 first year, $50/year thereafter. Whois: yes
.TJ : Tajikistan. Central Asian nation, pop ~6,250,000. NIC is run by two guys in Fresno who also run one of the two Public Registrars for Tajikistan. No information about their relationship to Tajikistan, or what if any benefits the country may receive from their registry fees. Site last updated in '98. Cost: $25/year ($8/year within .com.tj, .web.tj, etc) Whois: yes
.TP : East Timor. Big news a while back, the media seems to have forgotten about them once the shooting stopped. Their TLD is managed by Connect-Ireland as a public service to the Timorese diaspora. There is little documentation on the site, and it's unclear where the $35/year registration fee goes. Xanana Gusmao, former resistance leader and current president, is the Administrative Contact! Note: on May 20th, the ISO 3166 list changed East Timor's alpha-2 designation to TL (Timor Leste). Presumably the IANA will soon change their TLD accordingly. Cost: $35/year. Whois: none"
dot nu (Score:1, Informative)
Since it costs $60 for 2 year minimum, PLUS additional for the redirection, I'm going to drop them in a year or so.
Re:dot nu (Score:3, Interesting)
Getting a .nu domain name also pays for
See also http://www.niue.nu/iusn/hist.htm [www.niue.nu] (though the link is down for me at the moment), which gives a history of Internet User's Society Niue and of Internet connectivity in Niue.
Quote from there:
Re:dot nu (Score:2, Funny)
.nu!
Nikau:
No, no, no, no, i--
jayrtfm:
.nu!
Nikau:
No, it's not that. It's '.ni [www.nic.ni]'.
jayrtfm:
.nu!
Nikau:
No, no. '.ni'. You're not doing it properly. No.
jayrtfm:
.ni!
Nikau and jayrtfm:
.ni!
Nikau:
That's it. That's it. You've got it.
Nikau and jayrtfm:
.ni!
Standards by which to judge ccTLDs (Score:4, Informative)
If this document has been ratified, I'd like to see a final copy. Seems that http://www.cctld-drafting.org/ [cctld-drafting.org] is defunct, and www.cctld.org [cctld.org] is for sale -- the irony!
Re:Standards by which to judge ccTLDs (Score:2)
Terribly misleading. If you want your site associated with its geographic location, us that. If you don't, use a non-geographic TLD. But don't abuse the TLD of other countries. It's just rude and misleading.
Re:Standards by which to judge ccTLDs (Score:2, Interesting)
No, and I have no intention of registering in someone else's
Now, as to whether non-US agencies should be able to hold domains in the
The trickier ones to regulate are
But don't abuse the TLD of other countries. It's just rude and misleading.
This is the crux of our diagreement. I don't advocate for the right to register in any ccTLD's namespace -- if they want to keep registration closed to non-domestics, that's fine, and perhaps commendable -- but if a county's NIC has decided to allow non-resident registrants, where's the harm in that? In theory (see above for Best Practices for ccTLDs) the role of the ccTLD manager is to facilitate the development of network access within their Local Community. If they have, presumably in consultation with local stakeholders, determined that the additional revenue / visibility / good will that such a policy might generate will help to further the cause of the local community, who am I to judge the propriety? My only criteria, as an informed consumer, is that the NIC execute its trusteeship in good faith, for the bettement of its community.
Ultimately, I submit that non-resident registrants are likely to feel a certain fondness for their host country -- assuming that the NIC is locally managed, or at least not entirely disassociated from its locality, (like
Re:.tr for TROLL (Score:1)
translated to...
As a German I have to laugh about this
Seems ya got me, troll!
Must be AC (Score:4, Funny)
What is going to matter a little more than whois info is where is the company located? If you pay a US company to set up a
In short, pick whatever you think is most 733+, because the black helicopter guys are going to find you anyway.
Re:Must be AC (Score:1)
I'd just like my contact info to not be available to every joe shmoe or harvestbot that wants to trawl their database. The bulk of the spam i receive is addressed to the contacts at domains i own, which makes it hard to catch those pesky renewal notices, valid contacts, &c.
No Whois means Less Spam, Less Stalkers (Score:3, Interesting)
It also keeps nasty mean people from the Internet (IRC, Usenet, etc..) from harassing you.
I could start an entirely new identity through one of those domains. If you chained emails through multiple registrars with limited or no whois availability, you at least have a chance of foiling the casual observer's attempt to trace you.
I'm not personally concerned if the agencies know about my secret email accounts or not -- I'd have to have a higher profile with them in order to be worried. :)
.TK!! .TK!!! (Score:3, Informative)
Free
$35/year for
Re:.TK!! .TK!!! (Score:1)
Pity there are no Fortune 500s signed on to the project yet. Wonder what % of the reg fees goes toware the Tokelau Internet Project.
PLO domain names (Score:3, Funny)
So when can we expect to see cow.plo.ps?
Correction about .CX fees (Score:2)
.cc == Clear Channel (Score:2)
If not, get thee to ClearChannelSucks.org [clearchannelsucks.org].
-Waldo Jaquith
List (Score:3, Informative)
dot tk!! (Score:1)
.LI? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:.LI? (Score:1)
.LI ? (Score:1)
Russia? (Score:1)
Re:Russia? (Score:2)
Go for cock (Score:1)
a domain worthy of scraping :) (Score:1)
Nice if you're into dj'ing (Score:1)
Re:Nice if you're into dj'ing (Score:2)
I've found http://www.norid.no/domreg.html [norid.no] to be useful when trying to figure out which ccTLD corresponds to which country -- they also link to the NIC, if the address is known.
Re:Nice if you're into dj'ing (Score:2)
ccTLD Listing from IANA (Score:3, Insightful)
This one's expensive, but cool... (Score:1)
NB: the above comment refers to the English interpretation of the ccTLD, and has nothing to do with the country itself. Unfortunately, it's $500 to set up a 2nd-level domain.
East Timor (Score:2)
On May 20th, East Timor became an independant nation, prior to that they were a UN protectorate, and prior to that they were part of Indonesia.
I would go for East Timor. The timorese people have had a really tough time and could use the help. Plus they are the newest country in the world.
Re:East Timor (Score:1)
wtf? (Score:2)
Man, I knew there were some lousy Ask Slashdots in the past, but this one takes the cake.
would a sub-domain suit? (Score:1)
let me know if you want one under opendesign.cx
cya, Andrew...
Comments from .ST (Score:1)
We will soon be posting information regarding ongoing projects on São Tome and Principe on http://www.nic.st [www.nic.st]. [...] The old (very old) informtion site is locate at http://www.bahnhof.st [bahnhof.st]
In short: .ST domain sales are invested locally by .ST company run by locals from São Tome. There are many active
The major part of income from
the local
school programs wich involves internet connected rooms equipped with up
to date computers, special training and education for teachers etc.
There is also a cybercafé and operations together with the post office
to make e-mail more available to the local community, who in general
does not own a computer. The local company also runs traditional ISP
services - but is hindered to develop some of them because of the
monopoly of the local telephone company to run telecombased services.
He goes on to say that they are adamant about not providing contact email addresses via their whois server. Another good thing :)