It'll be a sad day for crypto bros...
October 9, 2024 1:06 PM Subscribe
"The decision to transfer the [Chagos I]slands to their new owner will result in the loss of one of the tech and gaming industry’s preferred top-level domains: .io."
The Internet has had to deal with the loss of TLDs (top level domains) before, most notably .su (the Soviet Union) and .yu (Yugoslavia). But today's Internet is FULL of .io domains - from popular sites like GitHub and Itch to a chunk of crypto sites, .io is currently popular, and its disappearance will have impact.
The Internet has had to deal with the loss of TLDs (top level domains) before, most notably .su (the Soviet Union) and .yu (Yugoslavia). But today's Internet is FULL of .io domains - from popular sites like GitHub and Itch to a chunk of crypto sites, .io is currently popular, and its disappearance will have impact.
.io will not disappear. ICANN will step in and select a new top level domain administrator.
posted by riotnrrd at 1:14 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
posted by riotnrrd at 1:14 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
Yep, likely nothing will change as a result of this. .io will become non-geographic. It's more like a fun thought experiment.
On the other hand, if you want to hear some wild stories, talk to people responsible for keeping the then-fashionable .ly domains up and running in 2011.
posted by phooky at 1:19 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
On the other hand, if you want to hear some wild stories, talk to people responsible for keeping the then-fashionable .ly domains up and running in 2011.
posted by phooky at 1:19 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
This piece is one of mine.
Flipping it to a gTLD would just open up a whole different can of worms. Not least setting a precedent for two-character gTLDs that they won't want to set without reason.
They'll either offer it to Mauritius to take over on tight conditions (to avoid the .su horror show) or just go straight to deprecation.
Ultimately its just a TLD. I find it fascinating that we're in this situation (hence writing the piece), but they've killed them before and will do again. The only reason this one os a bit special is tech bros love it.
And i figured it's a handy reminder that people should remember that just because a TLD is cool, doesn't automatically mean it's stable.
.ly proved that, as well as the examples i cited. Worth remembering when building a brand.
posted by garius at 1:38 PM on October 9 [28 favorites]
Flipping it to a gTLD would just open up a whole different can of worms. Not least setting a precedent for two-character gTLDs that they won't want to set without reason.
They'll either offer it to Mauritius to take over on tight conditions (to avoid the .su horror show) or just go straight to deprecation.
Ultimately its just a TLD. I find it fascinating that we're in this situation (hence writing the piece), but they've killed them before and will do again. The only reason this one os a bit special is tech bros love it.
And i figured it's a handy reminder that people should remember that just because a TLD is cool, doesn't automatically mean it's stable.
.ly proved that, as well as the examples i cited. Worth remembering when building a brand.
posted by garius at 1:38 PM on October 9 [28 favorites]
RIP ".um". USC couldn't be bothered and neither could anybody else.
posted by The Bellman at 1:43 PM on October 9 [3 favorites]
posted by The Bellman at 1:43 PM on October 9 [3 favorites]
Someone wrote a historical summary of five times ICANN completely removed TLDs and whether migrations happened.
Has ICANN confirmed their intentions for .IO?
posted by Callisto Prime at 1:45 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
Has ICANN confirmed their intentions for .IO?
posted by Callisto Prime at 1:45 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
No, and they won't until its removed from the ISO spec
posted by garius at 1:47 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
posted by garius at 1:47 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
The Chagos Islands will still be a territory (entirely occupied by the US military), surely, it's merely that the sovereignty has been passed over. So I'm not sure why there'd be a need to change the cctld for the territory.
This was not a problem for .hk, for example.
posted by ambrosen at 1:49 PM on October 9
This was not a problem for .hk, for example.
posted by ambrosen at 1:49 PM on October 9
RIP ".um". USC couldn't be bothered and neither could anybody else.
Someone asked me on BlueSky what my favourite lost TLD was and i said that one!
posted by garius at 1:49 PM on October 9 [4 favorites]
Someone asked me on BlueSky what my favourite lost TLD was and i said that one!
posted by garius at 1:49 PM on October 9 [4 favorites]
I never heard this story:
posted by adamrice at 1:51 PM on October 9 [28 favorites]
[t]he joint nation of Serbia and Montenegro attempted to adopt the name “Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.” Slovenia and Croatia objected, claiming that it implied Serbia and Montenegro were Yugoslavia’s legitimate successors.Stealing a TLD. I salute the audacity.
…
Slovenian academics traveled to Serbia at the end of 1992. Their destination was the University of Belgrade in the country’s capital. On arrival, they broke into the university and stole all the hosting software and domain records for the .yu top-level domain—everything they needed to seize control. For the next two years, the .yu domain was unofficially operated by ARNES (Academic and Research Network of Slovenia), which repeatedly denied its involvement in the original heist.
posted by adamrice at 1:51 PM on October 9 [28 favorites]
Chagos Islands will still be a territory (entirely occupied by the US military), surely, it's merely that the sovereignty has been passed over. So I'm not sure why there'd be a need to change the cctld for the territory
It might get a new country code. If so the domain should pivot to that. But it might also not. Because Solomon Islands didn't. They opted to keep SB and are still .sb as a result.
This is my point. There are rules, but also precedent for fudging them. Which has sometimes gone badly.
So whatever they pick will be fun to watch, if you like weird rules clashes.
posted by garius at 1:55 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
It might get a new country code. If so the domain should pivot to that. But it might also not. Because Solomon Islands didn't. They opted to keep SB and are still .sb as a result.
This is my point. There are rules, but also precedent for fudging them. Which has sometimes gone badly.
So whatever they pick will be fun to watch, if you like weird rules clashes.
posted by garius at 1:55 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
I mean, your claim is that .io will be lost. I find that doubtful, especially given that .mil has always been the only relevant tld for the residents of the territory since the invention of the internet.
posted by ambrosen at 2:00 PM on October 9
posted by ambrosen at 2:00 PM on October 9
There are enough people with enough influence who use .io and make money on .io that there is essentially zero chance that it goes away. ICANN will move it into the (growing) list of arbitrary non-geographic TLDs.
There are over 100,000 active domains in .su. The Soviet Union has been gone since 1991.
posted by toxic at 2:06 PM on October 9 [2 favorites]
There are over 100,000 active domains in .su. The Soviet Union has been gone since 1991.
posted by toxic at 2:06 PM on October 9 [2 favorites]
I mean, your claim is that .io will be lost.
No. It's that if it's removed from the ISO spec and they follow the current rules it will be.
So if they want to keep it they'll need to change them.
(No writer ever picks their headline. The publication does that)
posted by garius at 2:12 PM on October 9 [5 favorites]
No. It's that if it's removed from the ISO spec and they follow the current rules it will be.
So if they want to keep it they'll need to change them.
(No writer ever picks their headline. The publication does that)
posted by garius at 2:12 PM on October 9 [5 favorites]
Never heard of this domain suffix. Sadly disappointed that captain.io did not lead to a Michael Jackson page.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:15 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:15 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]
I play Flagle and Worldle every morning, and they both have British Indian Ocean Territory among the selections. I wonder if those will go away.
posted by MtDewd at 4:36 PM on October 9
posted by MtDewd at 4:36 PM on October 9
I mean, your claim is that .io will be lost. I find that doubtful, especially given that .mil has always been the only relevant tld for the residents of the territory since the invention of the internet.
i'm sorry have you done the amount of research the writer did or are you just spitballing here
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 5:56 PM on October 9 [4 favorites]
i'm sorry have you done the amount of research the writer did or are you just spitballing here
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 5:56 PM on October 9 [4 favorites]
Spitballing based on the principle that a sufficient amount of money causes rules to bend as surely as the gravity of the sun will bend the light of distant stars.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:54 PM on October 9 [2 favorites]
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:54 PM on October 9 [2 favorites]
i'm sorry have you done the amount of research the writer did or are you just spitballing here
My career has put me in direct contact with ICANN regularly over the last 30 years, including being involved in the process that moved Zaire from .zr to .cd. I've lived the research and I know the history. I'm far from the only greybeard around here who does. More than a couple of us knew Jon Postel, who literally was IANA for decades.
The author wrote a provocative piece, but not one that's grounded in the way that the inner workings of the internet actually work in practice -- it is a network run on handshakes almost as much as on contracts and wire-transfers. And the handshakes that matter here aren't going to deprecate or sunset a ccTLD with the sort of global reach that .io has -- even if their procedures manual says they're going to.
If you have a .io domain today, you're almost certainly going to continue to have a working .io domain a decade from now. You'll probably continue to be able to register new ones.
posted by toxic at 8:52 PM on October 9 [4 favorites]
My career has put me in direct contact with ICANN regularly over the last 30 years, including being involved in the process that moved Zaire from .zr to .cd. I've lived the research and I know the history. I'm far from the only greybeard around here who does. More than a couple of us knew Jon Postel, who literally was IANA for decades.
The author wrote a provocative piece, but not one that's grounded in the way that the inner workings of the internet actually work in practice -- it is a network run on handshakes almost as much as on contracts and wire-transfers. And the handshakes that matter here aren't going to deprecate or sunset a ccTLD with the sort of global reach that .io has -- even if their procedures manual says they're going to.
If you have a .io domain today, you're almost certainly going to continue to have a working .io domain a decade from now. You'll probably continue to be able to register new ones.
posted by toxic at 8:52 PM on October 9 [4 favorites]
A somewhat more detailed history of the Chagos Islands and Chagos Islanders than the one Nelson linked. Warning: dogs are killed directly and humans mistreated to death.
posted by clew at 9:19 PM on October 9 [6 favorites]
posted by clew at 9:19 PM on October 9 [6 favorites]
i'm sorry have you done the amount of research the writer did or are you just spitballing here
Yes, the former
posted by ambrosen at 11:45 PM on October 9 [2 favorites]
Yes, the former
posted by ambrosen at 11:45 PM on October 9 [2 favorites]
It’s amusing that this article is hosted on a .to (tonga) domain.
posted by tehgubner at 4:08 AM on October 10 [5 favorites]
posted by tehgubner at 4:08 AM on October 10 [5 favorites]
I wonder why people are so hungry to believe in this ridiculous outcome (`.io` being deprecated entirely). It's a huge, uselessly stupid disruption.
it's not "just" a tld. The cost of deprecating it can probably be measured in the tens of millions of dollars.
For people who don't touch computers professionally, imagine that the someone decided that the first two digits of your postal code were unlucky, and had them removed from service - and so you and your nearest four hundred thousand neighbours had to update your addresses with every single entity that might send you mail. It's just a postal code! but now nobody can reach you unless you waste time updating forms everywhere.
(substitute postal code with phone number if that's more relevant to you personally)
posted by pmv at 1:11 PM on October 10 [1 favorite]
it's not "just" a tld. The cost of deprecating it can probably be measured in the tens of millions of dollars.
For people who don't touch computers professionally, imagine that the someone decided that the first two digits of your postal code were unlucky, and had them removed from service - and so you and your nearest four hundred thousand neighbours had to update your addresses with every single entity that might send you mail. It's just a postal code! but now nobody can reach you unless you waste time updating forms everywhere.
(substitute postal code with phone number if that's more relevant to you personally)
posted by pmv at 1:11 PM on October 10 [1 favorite]
it is a network run on handshakes almost as much as on contracts and wire-transfers. And the handshakes that matter here aren't going to deprecate or sunset a ccTLD with the sort of global reach that .io has -- even if their procedures manual says they're going to.
This is not how IANA, nor ICANN have operated for more than a decade. This hasn't been Jon Postel's IANA since he before he died when people started suing him for decisions he was making. After his passing it gradually became much more formal. The initiation of the USG/Dept. of Commerce contract for services that ICANN held for the operation of IANA meant that informal rules and agreements had to be regularized and made formal. When the contract was concluded with a handover to ICANN of full responsibility for these activities, everything was as close to being officially documented as possible. When ICANN launched the New gTLD Program in 2012, strict rules distinguishing ccTLDs from gTLDs were established, including that no gTLDs could be 2 letter codes. If dot-IO were to transition to another entity, it would have to remain in the ISO spec or a specific exemption would have to be created, along with having a governmental organization responsible for the geographic region willing to accept responsibility for managing the domain.
Aside from the ccTLDs discussed in the article, there have been other controversial transitions of ccTLDs under ICANN's management of the TLD space, particularly dot-IQ and the non-delegation of dot-EH. As mentioned in another comment the de-delegation of dot-UM was also an involved process.
posted by drossdragon at 2:01 PM on October 10 [2 favorites]
This is not how IANA, nor ICANN have operated for more than a decade. This hasn't been Jon Postel's IANA since he before he died when people started suing him for decisions he was making. After his passing it gradually became much more formal. The initiation of the USG/Dept. of Commerce contract for services that ICANN held for the operation of IANA meant that informal rules and agreements had to be regularized and made formal. When the contract was concluded with a handover to ICANN of full responsibility for these activities, everything was as close to being officially documented as possible. When ICANN launched the New gTLD Program in 2012, strict rules distinguishing ccTLDs from gTLDs were established, including that no gTLDs could be 2 letter codes. If dot-IO were to transition to another entity, it would have to remain in the ISO spec or a specific exemption would have to be created, along with having a governmental organization responsible for the geographic region willing to accept responsibility for managing the domain.
Aside from the ccTLDs discussed in the article, there have been other controversial transitions of ccTLDs under ICANN's management of the TLD space, particularly dot-IQ and the non-delegation of dot-EH. As mentioned in another comment the de-delegation of dot-UM was also an involved process.
posted by drossdragon at 2:01 PM on October 10 [2 favorites]
Incidentally, on the topic of sunsetting... with the loss of the Chagos Islands, the sun will now set on the British Empire.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 5:25 PM on October 10 [5 favorites]
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 5:25 PM on October 10 [5 favorites]
I'm no expert, but the Chagos Islands were not an independent political entity before, and they won't be one in the future. If they could have a ccTLD before, they could have one in the future. A look at the list of ccTLDs shows lots of territories for which this is true. Hong Kong. Isle of Man. Faroe Islands. Puerto Rico. In fact, the .hk TLD survived the handover from the UK to the PRC, so there is some precedent.
posted by adamrice at 6:47 AM on October 11
posted by adamrice at 6:47 AM on October 11
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Does anyone have a good link on the current .io administration? My understanding is it was a form of digital colonialism, that some UK company entirely unaffiliated with the Indian Ocean was running it and profiting. I have this 2015 article that went into some detail but wouldn't mind reading something more modern. If this inequity still persists, maybe now it can be corrected.
posted by Nelson at 1:13 PM on October 9 [12 favorites]