Top Level Domain Names

May 27, 2003 6:20 AM

It's What Comes After The Dot, My Dear,that really matters in Internet addresses, don't you know? A useful list of TLDs (that's Top Level Domain names to you, kiddo) is also a reminder of the incredible variety of cool ISO country codes. If there are personalized license plates, why not e-mail addresses? I, for instance, am definitely looking into acquiring a prestigious .mc address. Unless it means actually having to move to Monaco, God forbid. [Via Bifurcated Rivets.]
posted by MiguelCardoso (34 comments total)

I *hate* the policy that you must have a 2 digit suffix to get a .ind.in domain name. I really want a joshi.*.in
posted by riffola at 6:37 AM on May 27, 2003

Forget .mc, I want .io (British Indian Ocean Territory)! Or maybe .gq (Equatorial Guinea).
posted by Utilitaritron at 6:45 AM on May 27, 2003

I don't think so, Miguel - DJ Bernstein of http://cr.yp.to is an American citizen.
posted by Ryvar at 6:48 AM on May 27, 2003

The island nation Tuvalu has leased its internet domain name .tv for 50 million over 12 years. Not bad considering their GDP is only 12.2 million a year.
posted by Quinn at 6:50 AM on May 27, 2003

Yeah, and most of the .tv names are American companies, too.
posted by gramcracker at 6:50 AM on May 27, 2003

Miguel: here's the monaco registrar info. Good luck!
posted by signal at 7:13 AM on May 27, 2003

Bah... personal rant number 2008 - throw out all .com .net and .org types and then let them apply for them again. If they aren't a true multinational then they can drop their domain name. Then give all the ones who lost their names a .us domain name...

All of which is beside the point, I know...
posted by twine42 at 7:13 AM on May 27, 2003

twine42, what about MetaFilter.com, MetaFilter.org, MetaFilter.net?
posted by riffola at 7:19 AM on May 27, 2003

Easy there, twine42, .org is no longer maintained by a corrupt registrar (Verisign/Netsol/*wink**wink**nudge*nudge*ICANN). Despite owning two .com's (speaking of which, time to transfer those), I wouldn't mind losing them if the .com and .net tables were wiped clean.
posted by Ryvar at 7:22 AM on May 27, 2003

Don't know about wiping .org, thank you very much. I run a .org, and, frankly, I don't want a .com or .net. I provide some free email and webmail, and act as a host for some blogs and spam blocking lists. I do not, however, see a penny from any of this. I'll leave the .coms and .nets to the guys smart enough to make a profit off it...
posted by Samizdata at 7:46 AM on May 27, 2003

If I move to the Republic of Moldova, I can become ElvisJesus.md -- not a real doctor but I play one on the internet. I wonder if that would qualify my to write script for all the online prescription sites? mmmm, self-medication
posted by ElvisJesus at 8:00 AM on May 27, 2003

Dang. the one I want isn't even there.

.fu, miguel.
posted by crunchland at 8:07 AM on May 27, 2003

*recoils at the thought of Miguel in Monaco*

For Miguel's sake, that is. I spent forty minutes in "Manhattan-on-Sea" a couple of months ago (would have been half that, but the traffic was horrific.) That was good enough for me and I feel no need to go back. I'd rather spend time just outside it, in Menton, Ventimiglia, or any of a huge number of places toward Nice way.

Besides, with a .mc TLD, people'd think you're a rapper. MC Cardoso! On the mic! With his partner DJ Dipsomania!
posted by Vidiot at 8:18 AM on May 27, 2003

Western Sahara should rent their domain out to Canadians.
posted by Johnny Assay at 8:23 AM on May 27, 2003

ummm,

um -- US Minor Outlying Islands

WTF are the "US Minor Outlying Islands"?

Admit it, they were made up so that they could have the cool "um" tld.
posted by couch at 8:40 AM on May 27, 2003

Lemon Jelly bought the KY extension for their album (lemon jelly - ky, great album btw).
posted by iamck at 9:10 AM on May 27, 2003

Bah. That should be Lemon Jelly.

Please carry on.
posted by iamck at 9:32 AM on May 27, 2003

http://woil.ws/
Where WS are my initials... because some bucketheads wanted $40,000+ for woil.com. Bastards.
posted by woil at 10:11 AM on May 27, 2003

I wasn't aware of some of those generic TLDs at the bottom. Why is "pro" apparently limited to "Accountants, lawyers and physicians"? There are certainly other applicable professions, particularly the oldest one. Think http://turning.pro
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:18 AM on May 27, 2003

These guys (among others) would probably want that .mc domain as well, Miguel.
posted by TedW at 11:38 AM on May 27, 2003

RegistryPro is still working in the sunrise period for the TLD rollout George_Spiggott... either way, you'll never be able to get a generic name like turning.pro.
posted by rogue at 11:42 AM on May 27, 2003

You're all missing the big point that there's still a mint to be made by the right countries leasing out their domains to appropriate entrepreneurs! Here's my first four proposals, and I'm only up to the two-letter ones:

www.fi.do
www.ho.bo
www.me.fi
www.mo.fo
posted by yhbc at 11:51 AM on May 27, 2003

Okay, one longer one:

www.trala.la
posted by yhbc at 11:51 AM on May 27, 2003

i'm disappointed www.boysr.us doesn't have geoffrey the giraffe in their logo.
posted by danOstuporStar at 12:02 PM on May 27, 2003

You can keep Alvarado, Santa Monica, even Beverly Drive. I have first dibs on "www.high.iq" [the dust-gathering TLD for Iraq]. I wouldn't mind having low.iq either, for sale to [your despised celebrity here].
posted by hairyeyeball at 12:11 PM on May 27, 2003

I'm surprised that Eritrea doesn't have people knocking on their doors....I mean, who wouldn't want www.poofling.er?

And yhbc, if you ever move to St. Helena, www.commi.sh is all yours.
posted by Ufez Jones at 12:17 PM on May 27, 2003

I've been kind of surprised that public relations firms haven't flocked to Puerto Rico's TLD.

Also, lousy.dj is available for $50/year. Pretty cheap, even if he isn't very good.
posted by me3dia at 12:40 PM on May 27, 2003

Hmm, the Federal State of Micronesia, .fm...

wonder if rt.fm is taken? (Apparently, it is, and Micronesia is somewhere in Illinois. Who knew?)

Proof that Estonia is the Baltic state equivalent of a roller coaster ride:

wheee.ee

Renee Descartes was a drunken fart who was very rarely stable, and forgot to renew his (Armenian) domain:

ithinkthereforei.am

Nobody will suspect it's your real email:

[e-mail]

Q: Can a TLD have the Buddha-nature?

A: .mu

Obligatory Unix humour:

emacs.vi

I'd better stop now, or it'll be my

do.om
posted by arto at 3:07 PM on May 27, 2003

All this talk of domains reminds me of the classics: sci.fi, yes.no and chocolate.dk among others.

Riffola, before the .in registry was opened up for general registration (when all the rules came into effect), I had a list of .in domains that I wanted/wished I could register. I would have loved to have gr.in, g.in, hero.in, marv.in etc. But the Indian NIC deemed otherwise.
posted by mumbaiyaa at 3:34 PM on May 27, 2003

This thread is making my soul cry.

What's the point of having a geographically-based categorization if everyone ignores it?

*sigh*

Long lost battle, I know, but it still irks me.
posted by jammer at 5:02 PM on May 27, 2003

Oh Sci.fi! I remember that one, from several years back. That led me to wonder what www.com would be (since the naive might stumble upon when first using the web), and in dissappointment I tried www.wwwwwwwwww.com (10 Ws); it was a single page with an image of
www.
wwwwwwwwww
.com
I have a print out, but no digital copy any longer ... Oh, and, at least as of two years ago, everything with 11 Ws or more is porn.
posted by Utilitaritron at 5:22 PM on May 27, 2003

Well, to answer jammer, the geographically-based TLDs aren't for categorization purposes -- they're the property of the designated nation to use as they see fit. Obviously Tuvalu (tv), Christmas Island (cx), Tonga (to) and Nieu (nu) see a greater national benefit in renting the durn things out rather than letting all 1000 citizens have 1000 domains apiece. You can find the registrar for any given TLD at CCRegistrars.com.

It's also not hard to find a list of the US Minor Outlying Islands: Baker I., Howland I., Jarvis I., Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Islands, Navassa I., Palmyra I., Wake I. Most of them are nearly uninhabited, or only by US military personnel. The TLDs were given out without a perfect correspondence to legal national status, and include many dependencies.

The Puerto Rico domain still seems to be run in the old volunteer-internet era manner by the University of Puerto Rico, apparently as a public service. It's not clear whether the government of Puerto Rico (which is a quasi-sovereign nation in commonwealth with the United States, as established by two referenda in the last couple of decades rejecting both independence and statehood) has attempted to gain administrative control over the TLD, but I would guess not. If they do, they may well choose the route of other small countries and open it up for profitable speculation with the revenues accruing to the public purse.

And as for .pro, George, the process agreed on by ICANN for opening up new TLDs is that a registrar proposes a TLD to manage and the policies by which it will be managed, which can be as restrictive or as open as the proposer likes. ICANN's first round of new TLDs is clearly intended to experiment with a variety of approaches, but mainly strikes a direction toward more restrictive TLDs that "mean something" as opposed to just letting anyone have one for any reason. The RegistryPro people clearly believe that a brand identity for the TLD requires some pretty clear rules to keep out pretenders and interlopers.
posted by dhartung at 7:16 PM on May 27, 2003

riffola you could get joshi.id.au if you were a resident of Australia. Which may not seem like much of a big deal unless you remember that, until the introduction of the .id.au domains, it was not possible for individuals to register a domain under .au at all.
posted by dg at 10:31 PM on May 27, 2003

Ah but I am not an Aussie. If only I were!
posted by riffola at 8:17 AM on May 29, 2003