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Is it time to retire the .gb top level domain?
- ClassyJacket 4y agoA very rare break of Betteridge's Law of Headlines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
- notpushkin 4y agoI'm not sure why doesn't the UK just start selling the .gb domains. Seems like a nice suffix for domain hacks (64.gb anybody?) and in general.
- przemub 4y agoThere's a huge push in the UK not to use GB abbreviation unless necessary, because it excludes Northern Ireland. Similarly, since last year international car plates bear UK sign, not GB as it had been for a hundred years before.
- markdown 4y agoWhat's with GB at the Olympics though?
- walthamstow 4y ago~Each island competes as one.~ Edit - oops incorrect.
- Leherenn 4y agoThey don't at the Olympics.
- another-dave 4y ago> Each island competes as one. I don't think that's technically correct. Anyone in NI has Irish citizenship (who wants it), so any NI athlete can represent Ireland. "Team GB" is the official team of the whole of the UK though, including Northern Ireland.
- rocketbop 4y agoYou are correct, the official name of the team is `Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team`
- argentier 4y agoFor the Olympics you are incorrect but it varies. Rugby - one team for the island Soccer - one federation for each polity on the island, but Derry City plays in the League of Ireland (Republic of Ireland). Two international teams. Cricket - one team for the island Etc etc. There is some tiresome hand-wringing every time an athlete has decide on their allegiance. Basically, Ireland is a political Mandelbrot set.
- benwad 4y agoWeirdly, NI Olympic athletes can choose to compete for either Ireland or the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_GB#Calls_for_renaming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_GB#Calls_for_renaming
- another-dave 4y agoI think Northern Ireland is unique in that regard, where every person holds (or at least, is entitled to) dual citizenship from birth.
- OJFord 4y agoI guess HKers are kind of simultaneously Chinese and not Chinese until they get old enough to form an opinion. And I'm not sure if they actually have 'dual citizenship from birth', but South Korea has an open door policy to North Korean.. immigrants/refugees.
- justahuman74 4y agoI think one of the parents of the child has to be a UK or Ireland citizen. For example, German parents resident in and having a child in Northern Ireland, the child is only a UK citizen (and perhaps German? I don't know that part of it)
- noodlesUK 4y agoUK nationality law is exceptionally complex (probably the most complex in the world). Irish nationality law is less complex but inherited a lot of warts from the UK In general if you’re born in NI and your parents are settled (that is they have permanent residency or are EU citizens with derived status) or are UK/IE citizens you are both British and Irish.
- wiredfool 4y agoIf one of your parents is NI born, it entitles you to have both UK (by descent) and Irish (by Good Friday) citizenship. Couple this with being born in the US, and my kids have 3 citizenships from birth.
- Leherenn 4y agoThe reasoning is that UK is still not actually correct (though more correct) because the Olympic committee also oversees places like the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands and so on which are not technically part of the UK. Then it seems they keep it because of tradition and because the country code is GBR.
- IanCal 4y agoThat's contentious. Technically the full name is the "Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team". Broadly the answer is "branding" and there isn't a strong enough push to change it.
- dontlaugh 4y agoThat is indeed the reasoning. Of course, those of us that don't think Northern Ireland should continue to be colonised would like GB used everywhere.
- _dain_ 4y ago
- rocketbop 4y agoThe Ulster Plantations were 400 years ago, calling it a colony now is beyond a stretch and sounds childish.
- dontlaugh 4y agoBritish police and military were killing Irish people in the north around 30 years ago. The north is still under British occupation. When that ends and the island is re-unified, we can start saying that colonisation is being addressed.
- bearmode 4y ago>When that ends and the island is re-unified Why are you trying to force 2 million people to live in a country that most of them explicitly don't want to?
- robin_reala 4y agoReunification will happen when the majority of them do want to, and that’s probably not that far away given the chart at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Ireland#Northern_Ireland_opinion_polling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Ireland#Northern_Irelan...
- bearmode 4y agoAnd that's absolutely fine, I'll cheer them on in the reunification process when that time comes. But at the moment they don't, and it's silly to suggest that it's still a colony until then.
- cstross 4y agoIt's worth noting that "Great Britain" is very specifically the name of a geographical land mass -- an island off the coast of Europe that currently includes England, Wales, and Scotland. In political terms it doesn't include NI ... or the Isle of Man, the Isle of Wight, and the Channel Islands. (Also, in event of Scottish independence, using "GB" for the nationality would cause confusion because post-independence there'd be two separate nations on the GB land mass. See also [minor] confusion over "Ireland".)
- mprev 4y agoSorry to be picky, but the Isle of Man and Channels Islands aren't part of the UK either. Politically, IoW is part of England and so GB, albeit geographically a separate island.
- crazygringo 4y agoJesus christ, just when I thought I understood what all the convoluted UK/GB/etc names meant, now I discover I need to add "Crown Dependencies" to the list? That turn out to be neither part of the UK nor British Overseas Territories? I swear they're just messing with us. Who comes up with these things...
- whatatita 4y agoThe always relevant CGP Grey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10 Skip to 5:00 for a beautiful diagram outlining the mess.
- russellbeattie 4y agoI assumed this link would have been one of the top comments! All the other links in this thread combined don't shed light on the topic nearly as well as CGP Grey's video.
- donalhunt 4y agoProbably explains the lack of a constitution too. No one dares to try and document it!
- nlnn 4y agoIndeed - there are a couple of good diagrams that attempt to illustrate what each term encompasses, e.g.: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/British_Isles_Venn_Diagram-en.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/British_...
- ClumsyPilot 4y agoI find it annoying that any time you prepare for the test or read official textbook, such diagrams are never provided. Its alsways dome super spesific textual information
- midasuni 4y agoWhy are England and Wales in once circular but Scotland isn’t?
- selectodude 4y agoEngland and Wales share a legal system that is distinct from the one in Scotland and NI, which is the only thing I could think would explain that. Wales didn’t have its own parliament until 1998 and was entirely governed by London.
- arethuza 4y agoWasn't Wales annexed by force into England while Scotland joined with England as an act of desperation following an amazingly incompetent attempt at setting up a colony?
- iso1631 4y agoWell there were two joinings. In the first one the Scottish King (James VI) took over the English throne after Elizabeth I died. King James then began to try to create a unified state, merging first the churches. Of course there was then that little Cromwell bustup, but after that James VII of Scotland was on the throne and causing religious grief, his daughter and her Dutch husband then took over.
- AlecSchueler 4y agoAs someone from Northern Ireland who is often frustrated by British companies who don't ship to or provide services to this side of the sea, I think having this clearly indicated by a .gb TLD would be great.
- bombcar 4y agoThis is like "free shipping to the US" and then you learn that they mean contiguous US and Alaska and Hawaii are not included.
- adra 4y agoAlaska is continental but not continuous. Just imagine living in Porto Rico or any of the other random us protectorates that have no legal voting authority.
- rpastuszak 4y ago*contiguous not continuous (not the same thing, could just mean "sharing a common border") *Puerto Rico not Porto Rico
- blackshaw 4y agoBritish companies often charge extra to ship to the "Highlands and Islands", meaning northern Scotland (one of the most sparsely populated areas in Europe.)
- GauntletWizard 4y agoI am surprised by this; Does the Royal Mail charge more? Like, significantly so? USPS charges more for shipping cross-country, certainly, but I consider their rates[1] pretty fair for the distance involved. [1] https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/Notice123.htm#_c052 https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/Notice123.htm#_c052 - For clarity, Zone 7 is cross-country for the most part, Zone 8 is mostly "Non-contiguous" (Alaska and Hawaii), and zone 9 is "Foreign but US Sovereignty" (Military bases, Embassies, Minor Outlying Islands). The maximum zone by distance in the UK would be Zone 4 - (Almost) All points within the British Isles are < 600 miles from each other.
- pjc50 4y agoThis is essentially down to the mainland forgetting that Northern Ireland existed until Brexit forced the NI border issue to prominence, isn't it? The UK is to a great extent a set of special cases that have accreted from the feudal era. No wonder we invented Mornington Crescent. All of the compatibility issues and awkwardnesses that derive from this get glossed over as much as possible, but are starting to force their way to the surface as the power and competence vaccuum in the center loses its grip.
- pestatije 4y agoWhat should be the correct demonym? ...Ukeyish?
- Veen 4y agoConfusingly, it's British.
- oneeyedpigeon 4y agoThat would upset an awful lot of people living in Northern Ireland, though. I'd be up for adopting "United Kingdomer".
- chrisseaton 4y agoThe unionists there already describe themselves as British. The republicans don't but they wouldn't want to be UKish either, obviously.
- 323 4y agoCurrency should be changed too then from GBP to UKP.
- donalhunt 4y agoSterling (aka the GBP) is used outside the UK. The United Kingdom also allows some regions to issue bank notes that are considered currency but not legal tender (i.e. then can be refused for payment of a debt in favour of currency issued by the Bank of England). See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterl...
- brnt 4y agoAlways wondered why British car plates say GB instead of UK. Or indeed, why we say "British", and not "UK-ians". What do Northern Irish plates say?
- mritzmann 4y agoOn the other hand, it would be confusing to have two top level domains for one country.
- RobotToaster 4y agoThere's a few that already have that, China has .cn and .中国 for instance.
- robin_reala 4y agoUK’s not one country though. E.g. there’s https://www.gov.uk/ https://www.gov.uk/, but also https://www.gov.scot/ https://www.gov.scot/ and https://gov.wales/ https://gov.wales/.
- blibble 4y agothose aren't classed by icann as cctlds (in the same way .vegas and .miami aren't)
- RobotToaster 4y agoThe UK is one country, it just happens to be made up of multiple countries. Just as the United States is a (sovereign) state, that is made up of multiple states.
- soneil 4y agoThe way I prefer to think of it, is the UK is a state comprising of several countries, and the US is a country comprising of several states. I can't promise it's any more accurate, but it amuses me.
- School-Cotton 4y agoWhat does that mean?
- soneil 4y ago
- Already__Taken 4y agoJust for vanities sake it'd be good but the last thing the world wants is news.gb
- Iwan-Zotow 4y agoDomain should be named .kgb anyway Thus news.kgb
- bombcar 4y agoI look forward to the official renaming to the "United Kingdom of Giga Byte and Northern Ireland" and then we can all fight over if it should have been Gibi Byte.
- nimish 4y agoSomeone in Gibraltar should have created .gib IMO
- Already__Taken 4y agoI mean, lets get a couple more general elections done and see if we keep NI and Scotland...
- robin_reala 4y ago“The United Kingdom of England and Wales” still theoretically works.
- steanne 4y agothe kingdom of southern great britain?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- smcl 4y agoI think they'd continue to refer to it as such but to me it feels a little odd. The "United Kingdom" was originally a union of the kingdoms of Scotland and England, the latter having already conquered and absorbed Wales. Losing one former-kingdom of that union and maintaining you're the "United Kingdom" feels a bit dishonest, a little bit "Democratic People's Republic ..." :) "The Kingdom of England and Wales" makes more sense but "KEW" and "EW" sound odd as acronyms, and will just lead to most of the world referring to the place as "England" (as many in the USA currently do tbh). That is, if they decide to keep the monarchy...
- Wildgoose 4y agoI think it would become simply "Britain", seeing as "Britannia" originally referred to the Roman colonies of England and Wales. "Great Britain" is the whole island (including Scotland). "United Kingdom" would require continued Union with either Scotland or Northern Ireland.
- smcl 4y ago"Britain" or "Kingdom of Britain" is a good idea, I hadn't considered that
- est 4y agoshould retire those bullshit for-profit TLDs like .google
- whatatita 4y agoNah, they don't hurt anyone.
- Y_Y 4y agoThey hurt me.
- aftbit 4y agoI disagree - they hurt all of the brands that were tricked or pressured into buying them to prevent someone else from going after them. If you look at e.g. .ford or .audi, they only have a small handful of sites, all of which could have been subdomains of .ford.com or .audi.com without any real loss.
- mightypirate 4y ago
- Tepix 4y agoIsn't the .IO domain a lot more controversial with the UK expelling the population of the islands? https://www.thewebmaster.com/archived/io-tld-top-level-domain/ https://www.thewebmaster.com/archived/io-tld-top-level-domai...
- ben_w 4y agoControversy hardly ever seems to influence the British government. Even the linked document is more of "Huh, what's this in the draw? Anyone using it?"
- toyg 4y agoFYI that page lacks recent developments: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/03/uk-agrees-to-negotiate-with-mauritius-over-handover-of-chagos-islands https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/03/uk-agrees-to-n... It looks like a politically isolated and weakened UK government has had to relent, and will finally hand over the territory to Mauritius. It's possibly the only positive outcome of the Brexit saga.
- dane-pgp 4y agoPositive for Mauritius, maybe. It's not clear that the Mauritian government would be any more likely to remove the US base there, and will instead be happy to just receive the rent that the US is currently paying the UK for it. One might also note that the Chagossians who lived in the British Indian Ocean Territory never actually owned any land there, nor were they self-sufficient in terms of food.[0] Also, the Chagossians were given[1] severance pay for their work there, and compensation for starting a new life in the Seychelles or Mauritius, back in the 1970s. Then, in the 1980s, the UK government paid out millions more in reparations[2], and this year the government offered them British citizenship too.[3] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagossians#Eviction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagossians#Eviction [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_expulsion_of_the_Chagossians#Removal_of_the_last_inhabitants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_expulsion_of_the_Chagos... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_expulsion_of_the_Chagossians#Compensation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_expulsion_of_the_Chagos... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/23/chagos-islands-descendants-can-apply-to-become-british-nationals https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/23/chagos-islands...
- JaDogg 4y agoSounds useful for game boy / retro gaming enthusiasts
- d--b 4y agoWhy even ask the question? It just opens the door to a no answer, which doesn't make any sense since the domain is already not used for anything.
- tokamak 4y agoBut when United Kingdom will split, what will Britain use?
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago.sb (Small Britain) ?
- RugnirViking 4y agothat's brittany (a region of france). "Great" britain is to distinguish it from there.
- medstrom 4y agoIt's more the other way around. The Romans called the isles Britannia Major and Britannia Minor (now Great Britain and Ireland). Some time after Rome fell, Britons started to settle in another region they called Armorica, so it changed name to Brittany. "Small Britain" could be either Ireland or Brittany at this point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britain_(place_name) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britain_(place_name)
- s_dev 4y ago.ie, .scot, .cymru, .wales, .irish
- gerikson 4y ago.ie? Already used by Ireland.
- s_dev 4y agoCorrect and the breakup of the UK will likely lead to a United Ireland. The real question is what will England use for a TLD? They've never considered their place in the world that isn't in reference to the UK or GB because to them the two are interchangeable.
- nerf3000 4y agoRetiring a TLD is cruel to anyone using the domain, especially with the prevalence of TLS. Just as retiring "land" that someone paid for and is living on would be cruel. The tendency for technologies to evaporate and be migrated to replacement for $reasons is too frequent. Domain TLDs should remain constant. If .gb no longer represents a geopolitical entity then transition it to a new manager with a contract that stipulates maintenance of established domains. Don't set precedent for pulling TLDs out from under people.
- thomasedwards 4y ago> It is staggeringly unlikely that you would ever have encountered a .gb domain in the wild. The only domain which is registered, though inactive, is hmg.gb - standing for His Majesty's Government. The domain was originally created in the mid 1980s, and abandoned at some point in the 1990s. There are no active domains which use .gb and today, the government only uses .gov.uk for its domains. Third paragraph.
- whatatita 4y agoDid you read the article? It says right at the beginning that only one domain was ever registered, and it's been inacite for over thirty years. Whilst I agree with the sentiment that TLDs shouldn't be pulled out from under people, replies without reading the article are just noise.
- connordoner 4y agoThis comment sums up HN perfectly.
- nerf3000 4y agoI'd say the presumptive replies do a more accurate job
- ksec 4y agoSo even if they retire it, I could never get a .GB domain? If that is the case I would much rather they keep it as it is.
- samwillis 4y agoThere is a significant chance that Northern Ireland will hold the referendum on independence that they are entitled to (part of the Good Friday agreement) at some point in the not too distant future. And if they do, there is a significant chance they will vote for independence or joining the south. If that happens, what happens to the UK? Does it just become "The United Kingdom of Great Britain", dropping "and Northern Ireland". Or do we stop using "The United Kingdom" as it sort of ceases to exist in its own right and revert to just "Great Britain"? This is a debate the UK government will want to avoid at all costs. I'm amazed they are even considering talking about the ".gb" domain, it bring up difficult topics. It's sort of schrodinger's domain, don't check on it and it both exists and doesn't exist at the same time!
- gmtx725 4y agoit was just called "Kingdom of Great Britain" before 1801 when it only included England Scotland and Wales
- samwillis 4y ago.gb it is then...
- Iwan-Zotow 4y agoshould be .kgb
- thesuitonym 4y agoIt would become the United Kingdom of England and Scotland. Though maybe they would acknowledge Wales for once.
- nanna 4y agoNorthern Ireland's departure would probably correlate with Scotland's, so more likely it'd be the United Kingdom of England and Wales. Catchy.
- bitwize 4y agoI think it should be handed over to the Game Boy emulation community. That is, provided that Baron Silas Greenback doesn't attempt to steal it in his bid to rule the world.
- ROARosen 4y ago> There is a risk that if handed back another country might try to claim it for themselves I really don't get this. What exactly is the risk? If they don't need it why do they need to make sure no one else gets it?
- counttheforks 4y agoOld domains which are still referenced somewhere will change ownership and can now be used for phishing or other nefarious activities. Also it looks official, I'm sure plenty of people would fall for gov.gb if the site looked official enough.
- londons_explore 4y agoIf the domain has ever been used for anything, there are serious security reasons to never reuse it. For example, imagine your recovery email address for something important is bob@something.gb. If 'gb' is ever reassigned to someone else, they can now get access to anything ever registered at a gb address. This is the reason things like gmail accounts are never recycled to another user. Early services like hotmail would recycle accounts, but it has since become an 'obviously bad idea'.
- bastawhiz 4y agoThe post does say that only one domain has ever been registered and it's been defunct for decades. The risk is probably zero.
- advisedwang 4y agoRisk 1: Impersonation. ie, someone sets up hmrc.gov.gb and tells people "pay your taxes here" and scams a bunch of people. Risk 2: Economic loss. People selling .gb domains might take away from .uk revenue. Risk 3: Political fallout. Perhaps Chagos Islanders somehow get control .gb and demand that the UK give up .io in exchange. There's plenty of geopolitics that could get brought up. Risk 4: opportunity cost. Perhaps later some major use for .gb arises, but by then it's too late. These are all pretty small risks, but this is the kind of thing they may have in mind.
- sharkbird2 4y agoHonestly, if it were up to me, my solution to this would be to not solve it all. There's only a finite amount of time and energy available in any organization and you have to make sure you spend it on the problems that are worth solving. That have a significant payoff of some sort. This doesn't seem to be one of those.
- layer8 4y agoThey should reserve .ew now in case both North Ireland and Scotland exit.
- Iwan-Zotow 4y agoIn a need of .kgb top level domain
- gumby 4y agogb is a legacy of an earlier system when a naming system in the UK was big-endian: gb.ac.cambridge etc (example; I no longer remember any of them for real). But it ought to be appropriate for entities in GB but not in the UK, such as Isle of Man, Channel Islands, post-independent Scotland (whose members could also use .EU again).
- yieldcrv 4y agoThere are city level domains now, this question is about a decade too late
- postultimate 4y agoThe UK got the .gb domain because it's the correct country code. The .uk domain came about because it was in use on the Janet academic network, shortly before all the networks were smooshed together to make the internet. It was probably expected that everyone would eventually move to .gb, but nothing ever gets fixed in computing...