Am I reading this right that statbotics.io, limelightvision.io (just to name a few) will all cease to exist?
https://every.to/p/the-disappearance-of-an-internet-domain?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
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Seems like they will remove them over time, not sure what the timeline for removal looks like…
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I think the most telling (and imo likely) bit is towards the end:
The IANA may fudge its own rules and allow .io to continue to exist. Money talks, and there is a lot of it tied up in .io domains.
I am interested to see if things break out if international boundaries. Makes fir an interesting geopolitical/ philosophical geography conversation.
There will likely be some big picture sort of nasty domain name legal drama as fallout from this.
I am glad I did not go with the .io for my scouting tools project.
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5 to 10 years usually, it’s happened a few times before. But in the case of .su for Soviet Union it was never retired (partially because the end of SU happened before the retirement process was established). So io may get the same treatment.
Not a tomorrow problem, or next week problem. Possibly next year or two. But it could all be moot speculation all based on the arbitrary decisions of groups of people (like ICANN, IANA) who decide these things. The Indian Ocean territory still does exist to some extent, and Mauritius could try to still keep the io name. Or purposely force it to change because it’s their territory.
The key questions for .io registrants are: will the renamed BIOT keep the IO assignment on the ISO list, and will the archipelago continue to qualify as a distinct territory eligible for ccTLD status?
It’s kind of a mess, but it’s too early to do anything until the paperwork is all signed and the initial determination of a new country code or keeping the old is made.
Can’t find the exact stat currently but around 300+ of the top 10,000 domains tracked by cloudflare metrics use a .io subdomain. This may mean enough of a market to break the usual protocol and keep it active to avoid disruptions. I don’t think Statbotics makes the 10k list but itch.io or github use .IO as subdomains for wikis or projects and that must be a large amount of that domain traffic. Not sure how those are counted as GitHub.io and all the sub pages or they are unique to cloudflare.
Same for https://www.frczero.org/ & https://www.gofundrobots.org/
Org is pretty safe… Right? Yes because it’s a generic top level domain. Generic top-level domain - Wikipedia not based on a country code.
Tl:Dr; This isn’t going to be a fast process by any means and if something did happen sites aren’t pulled overnight. Admins have years to fix the issue.
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I would be shocked if IANA actually pulls them. I wouldn’t say they’re known for following their own rules. There’s a lot of money that can be used to keep it going, and it is possible to buy your own TLD (.google). Money talks, especially with IANA.
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I was going to get a .me domain for my site but I ended up going with https://adabit.org cause I was a little weirded out by the whole cctld stuff
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I agree. I think while .io may certainly lose ccTLD status, it could possibly be grandfathered in as a gTLD, which is effectively how it is used.
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Losing .io would break too many things on the internet. I am sure this will just not be a problem. I wouldn’t lose sleep over it at all.
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Theo is a great personality, breaks down the current .io situation based in the same article.
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