[GTALUG] TLDs

[Evan Leibovitch]

On Thu, Jul 25, 2024 at 8:46 AM Giles Orr via talk <talk at gtalug.org> wrote:


> For example: .black and .green are apparently "cool" colours, because their
> registration cost is in the $50-$60 range.


Think like a marketer. Because it's marketers who are peddling domains as
branding tools, and choosing which gTLDs to create.

Dot-green was sold as a way for companies to demonstrate eco-awareness
(think "exxon.green"), some would call this greenwashing. Originally there
were some standards required from anyone wanting a dot-green domain but
those are gone and anyone can get one.

Dot-black is intended to be used by an identified cultural community,
similarly to dot-gay or dot-mormon.

Sometimes there is confusion. The dot-la domain is actually the country TLD
for Laos, but has been marketed first as a Latino community TLD, and when
that didn't work the marketers shifted focus and it's now being peddled as the
TLD for Los Angeles <https://www.la/>. There might even be Laotians using
it too.

Indeed, there are many countries that have allowed marketers to peddle
their TLDs like generics. The Columbian TLD, dot-CO, has been used by
GoDaddy and others as a fallback to those who can't get what they want
under dot-com. Others have famously brought revenue to tiny jurisdictions
such as Tuvalu (dot-TV) and French Micronesia (dot-FM). And how many people
using bit.ly know that some of the revenue from that company funnels back
to Libya?

I'm curious: what's your pick for weirdest TLD?  What's the strangest one
> you've actually seen in use?
>

I think my favourites are dot-wtf and dot-sucks, though neither is living
up to potential.

Weirdest to me is dot-cat because it has nothing to do with felines but is
instead used for Catalonia.

- Evan
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