Because .io is the top level country code domain for the British Indian Ocean Territory, and once a country ceases to exist, the top level domain is supposed to be phased out according to the IANA rules and eventually discontinued by the ICANN.
There are no .yu, .dd, .cs, or .tp domains left. The only exception I know is .su (soviet union).
The only reason .su still exists is because Russia said they would decommission it and then never did. ICANN chose not to let that happen again, which explains their choice to decommission the later ones.
What the fuck is the point of decommissioning them entirely, though? What value does that do anybody? Is there another country waiting in the wings? There are 1500 TLD’s already.
The obvious non-dickhead solution would be to transition the mgmt of .io from a ccTLD to a gTLD. “Rules” is not an answer.
Yeah, the whole concept of “national” TLDs is proving to be a rather poor one in practice. Very few of them actually make sense in the way they’re used.
That sounds more like an issue of enforcement than anything. If anyone can register a domain with your country’s extension, it’s not really your country’s extension.
If we handled it properly, those domains would have value.
Maybe. But it’s up to ICANN and their rules, money might not be relevant to them, and with .io, there literally isn’t a single person or company that uses it “correctly” as country TLDs are primarily intended to be used by entities connected to that country, and the territory has no permanent residents, unlike with .su.
On the flip side, that might work for the case too as well - maybe ICANN decides to make it a generic TLD, like .com or .org instead as it’s not really directly connected to a country?
We shall see.
as country TLDs are primarily intended to be used by entities connected to that country
Primarily, sure, but quite a few of them get abused, check the notes column. A glaring one these days is .ai, as are youtu.be and, of course, goatse.cx.
Applied-for gTLD strings in ASCII must be composed of three or more visually distinct characters. Two-character ASCII strings are not permitted, to avoid conflicting with current and future country-codes based on the ISO 3166-1 standard.
The profits gained from sales of .io domains has come under increasing scrutiny given that the UK’s control over the archipelago itself is under threat.
Chagossian refugee groups (former inhabitants forcibly removed in the 1960s and 1970s) petitioning the UK government for the right of return have recently extended their grievances to the return of the .io domain as well (Chagos Refugees Group United Kingdom et al. vs. Internet Computer Bureau Limited Citation 2021).
Additionally, Mauritius is also attempting to gain control over .io by petitioning IANA for redelegation (Bowcott Citation 2022).
However, while these groups fight for control over the .io domain, a recent UN ruling challenging British sovereignty over the island threatens the existence of the ccTLD itself.
While I agree with you in that ICANN will probably save .io through some policy change it isn’t as easy as just saying “screw all our policies, this ccTLD is now a gTLD.” considering the fighting going on regarding it.
Because .io is the top level country code domain for the British Indian Ocean Territory, and once a country ceases to exist, the top level domain is supposed to be phased out according to the IANA rules and eventually discontinued by the ICANN.
There are no .yu, .dd, .cs, or .tp domains left. The only exception I know is .su (soviet union).
Well they better make another damn exception.
The only reason .su still exists is because Russia said they would decommission it and then never did. ICANN chose not to let that happen again, which explains their choice to decommission the later ones.
What the fuck is the point of decommissioning them entirely, though? What value does that do anybody? Is there another country waiting in the wings? There are 1500 TLD’s already.
The obvious non-dickhead solution would be to transition the mgmt of
.iofrom a ccTLD to a gTLD. “Rules” is not an answer.Yeah, the whole concept of “national” TLDs is proving to be a rather poor one in practice. Very few of them actually make sense in the way they’re used.
That sounds more like an issue of enforcement than anything. If anyone can register a domain with your country’s extension, it’s not really your country’s extension.
If we handled it properly, those domains would have value.
There’s plenty of non country domains too. Just make it into some acronym or have it mean I/O or whatever.
There are sure, but none are two letters because those are restricted to country codes. Specifically the ISO 3166-1 alpha 2
IIRC two letter domains are reserved for country specific domains, the non-country domains start with three letters.
Still, too much money on
.ioto be shutdown.Maybe. But it’s up to ICANN and their rules, money might not be relevant to them, and with .io, there literally isn’t a single person or company that uses it “correctly” as country TLDs are primarily intended to be used by entities connected to that country, and the territory has no permanent residents, unlike with .su.
On the flip side, that might work for the case too as well - maybe ICANN decides to make it a generic TLD, like .com or .org instead as it’s not really directly connected to a country?
We shall see.
Primarily, sure, but quite a few of them get abused, check the notes column. A glaring one these days is
.ai, as areyoutu.beand, of course,goatse.cx.Tuvalu make around $10 million a year- about one-sixth of their gdp- from licensing
.tv..iois just too big to fail.Well, they should have chosen a gTld
So they could just transform .io to a gTLD without causing any downtime.
2.12 Can a New gTLD name be 2 letters?
Applied-for gTLD strings in ASCII must be composed of three or more visually distinct characters. Two-character ASCII strings are not permitted, to avoid conflicting with current and future country-codes based on the ISO 3166-1 standard.
Either way a policy change is needed.
luckily those are their internal rules and now international laws that can’t be broken.
THere’s literally 0 reason they can’t just go “well, this tld is too big. it’s generic now”
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23738871.2023.2238723
While I agree with you in that ICANN will probably save .io through some policy change it isn’t as easy as just saying “screw all our policies, this ccTLD is now a gTLD.” considering the fighting going on regarding it.
You sweet summer child…
For anyone who is not familiar, your day would surely be improved by watching the Map Men video on this topic.
“They have to get rid of it unless they decide not to.”
I assume it’s just gonna be inherited by Mauritius.