5 ms·

My local ccTLD answers to the democratic government on which I vote. ICANN is a foreign entity and answers to the US government.

throwaway11460 3y ago
My TLD answering to the democratic government on which I have 1 of 10 million votes - and most of it not going the way I'd like - is my worst fear.
- WindyMiller 3y ago
  Still, if that's your worst fear, at least you must have a pretty good government.
  - throwaway11460 3y ago
    No, it's just the only thing left where they can touch me.
- Macha 3y ago
  Better it answers to a board of directors where you have 0 votes?
  - throwaway11460 3y ago
    Yes, that board of directors is motivated to keep their revenue stream. A state doesn't care, it can just steal more (not saying all taxes are stealing, but it is in my home country).
- Gormo 3y ago
  ...especially if 9.9 million of those votes are being cast by people on the basis of questions completely unrelated to TLD governance, and who may not even be aware that such a thing exists. I've never understood the model of having a single democratic process be the arbiter of every issue. It just allows gamesmanship where factions can play up issue X to win votes, then use the political power they obtain to push their agenda on completely unrelated issue Y. I suspect this is a major motivation for a lot of the exaggerated political polarization around symbolic "culture war" issues.
  - palata 3y ago
    In a functioning democracy, the government does indeed represent the people. Not every country is lucky enough to have a functioning democracy of course, and the people only gets to vote once every few years for a president that by design does not represent them. I trust the ccTLD of my country more than the gTLDs that are private entities.
    - Gormo 3y ago
      >In a functioning democracy, the government does indeed represent the people. I don't even consider it logically possible for a singular government advancing a singular policy to represent "the people", because that concept represents an aggregation of many distinct individuals and communities, and all controversies and conflicts of interests that are addressed via politics emerge from within that aggregation. Politics is a tool for mitigating disputes arising from divergences of values or conflicts of interests within "the people", so the idea of treating it as something that expresses a singular set of values or interests applicable to the whole is incorrect. > I trust the ccTLD of my country more than the gTLDs that are private entities. The point is that everything is a private entity, even the government-run ones. All institutions are groups of specific people inhabiting a bounded context, and there's no mechanism for effectively making any particular institution accountable to a speculative aggregation of millions, so the distinction of between "public" and "private" is largely meaningless.
      - palata 3y ago
        We seem to be living in pretty different countries :-). > so the distinction of between "public" and "private" is largely meaningless In my country, what's "public" is owned by the government, and the government is elected by the people. There is an obvious difference between what is public and what is private, to the point where it is actually hard for me to imagine that someone living in my country may believe that the distinction is meaningless. > I don't even consider it logically possible for a singular government advancing a singular policy to represent "the people" Imagine that the people elects the government. Not one president, but the whole government. You will end up with elected officials ranging from the left to the right. If more people vote for the right, then there are more officials on the right, but there are still others that are elected on the left/center. For important matters, you have a referendum, where the people can directly vote on the topic at hand. The result of that is that if you always disagree with everything the government does, it means that you are part of a pretty small minority in your country. So you, individually, are not represented by the government, but most of the citizen are. That's the whole point. If you believe that everyone should have a government with which they agree 100% of the time, then that's not possible. But if you believe that, you need to learn how to compromise, for your own sake.
kijin 3y ago
Good for you. Can't say the same for many of the exotic ccTLDs that are considered sexy these days. On the other hand, there are oddities like .eu that have too many layers of abstraction between the people and the actual administrators; zombie ccTLDs like .su and .yu which stand for countries that no longer exist; and phantom ccTLDs like .io which don't stand for any officially recognized country at all. So it really depends on which ccTLD you're talking about.
- nemetroid 3y ago
  > So it really depends on which ccTLD you're talking about. Indeed. ccTLD vanity domains are a bad idea in general, and using .af for such purposes is an extraordinarily bad idea. As another comment pointed out, the article's conclusion of "avoid all ccTLDs" rather than "do your due diligence" is weird.
  - kijin 3y ago
    Agreed. I would generally not use a ccTLD unless 1) it's from a stable first-world democracy, and 2) I have either citizenship or a strong business presence in that country. Having said that, if OP is from the United States, I can sort of understand why the conclusion goes "avoid all ccTLDs." Americans have a tendency to treat the initial set of gTLDs as their own -- not only .gov, .mil, and .edu, but all the well-known ones, too.
    - graemep 3y ago
      I would add, if it is the place where your business is located (or you live). Regardless of how good or bad a government it is, you are already subject to its jurisdiction.
      - kijin 3y ago
        Depends on how permanent you think your current location is. Someone living and doing business in Canada might be eligible for .ca right now, but what if they decide to immigrate to the United States, and do business in the Bay Area instead? That's a fairly common situation for startup founders, but things can get really hairy unless they are a full Canadian citizen.
trimethylpurine 3y ago
ccTLDs are issued by IANA which is literally setup by the US government. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Assigned_Numbers_Authority https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Assigned_Numbers_Au... Meanwhile ICANN is an international company so it doesn't answer to any government except within their respective borders.
- kijeda 3y ago
  The US Government ended its involvement in IANA when it moved to an international oversight model in 2016. IANA is operated by Public Technical Identifiers which is an affiliate of ICANN, and ICANN provides all of its funding. Governments have a say in how ICANN operates through its Government Advisory Committee, at which all governments — including the US — have a seat.
  - trimethylpurine 3y ago
    Great clarification. What I'm poking at is that in all likelihood the US will hold the same view towards a gTLD as a ccTLD and for the same reasons. It is in line with Western ideals to preserve free speech, and so governments of Western societies must appeal to those ideals. The US is no exception, as seen by its willingness to be hands off with regards to IANA and ICANN.

throwaway11460 3y ago

My TLD answering to the democratic government on which I have 1 of 10 million votes - and most of it not going the way I'd like - is my worst fear.

WindyMiller 3y ago
Still, if that's your worst fear, at least you must have a pretty good government.
- throwaway11460 3y ago
  No, it's just the only thing left where they can touch me.
Macha 3y ago
Better it answers to a board of directors where you have 0 votes?
- throwaway11460 3y ago
  Yes, that board of directors is motivated to keep their revenue stream. A state doesn't care, it can just steal more (not saying all taxes are stealing, but it is in my home country).
Gormo 3y ago
...especially if 9.9 million of those votes are being cast by people on the basis of questions completely unrelated to TLD governance, and who may not even be aware that such a thing exists. I've never understood the model of having a single democratic process be the arbiter of every issue. It just allows gamesmanship where factions can play up issue X to win votes, then use the political power they obtain to push their agenda on completely unrelated issue Y. I suspect this is a major motivation for a lot of the exaggerated political polarization around symbolic "culture war" issues.
- palata 3y ago
  In a functioning democracy, the government does indeed represent the people. Not every country is lucky enough to have a functioning democracy of course, and the people only gets to vote once every few years for a president that by design does not represent them. I trust the ccTLD of my country more than the gTLDs that are private entities.
  - Gormo 3y ago
    >In a functioning democracy, the government does indeed represent the people. I don't even consider it logically possible for a singular government advancing a singular policy to represent "the people", because that concept represents an aggregation of many distinct individuals and communities, and all controversies and conflicts of interests that are addressed via politics emerge from within that aggregation. Politics is a tool for mitigating disputes arising from divergences of values or conflicts of interests within "the people", so the idea of treating it as something that expresses a singular set of values or interests applicable to the whole is incorrect. > I trust the ccTLD of my country more than the gTLDs that are private entities. The point is that everything is a private entity, even the government-run ones. All institutions are groups of specific people inhabiting a bounded context, and there's no mechanism for effectively making any particular institution accountable to a speculative aggregation of millions, so the distinction of between "public" and "private" is largely meaningless.
    - palata 3y ago
      We seem to be living in pretty different countries :-). > so the distinction of between "public" and "private" is largely meaningless In my country, what's "public" is owned by the government, and the government is elected by the people. There is an obvious difference between what is public and what is private, to the point where it is actually hard for me to imagine that someone living in my country may believe that the distinction is meaningless. > I don't even consider it logically possible for a singular government advancing a singular policy to represent "the people" Imagine that the people elects the government. Not one president, but the whole government. You will end up with elected officials ranging from the left to the right. If more people vote for the right, then there are more officials on the right, but there are still others that are elected on the left/center. For important matters, you have a referendum, where the people can directly vote on the topic at hand. The result of that is that if you always disagree with everything the government does, it means that you are part of a pretty small minority in your country. So you, individually, are not represented by the government, but most of the citizen are. That's the whole point. If you believe that everyone should have a government with which they agree 100% of the time, then that's not possible. But if you believe that, you need to learn how to compromise, for your own sake.

kijin 3y ago

Good for you. Can't say the same for many of the exotic ccTLDs that are considered sexy these days. On the other hand, there are oddities like .eu that have too many layers of abstraction between the people and the actual administrators; zombie ccTLDs like .su and .yu which stand for countries that no longer exist; and phantom ccTLDs like .io which don't stand for any officially recognized country at all. So it really depends on which ccTLD you're talking about.

nemetroid 3y ago
> So it really depends on which ccTLD you're talking about. Indeed. ccTLD vanity domains are a bad idea in general, and using .af for such purposes is an extraordinarily bad idea. As another comment pointed out, the article's conclusion of "avoid all ccTLDs" rather than "do your due diligence" is weird.
- kijin 3y ago
  Agreed. I would generally not use a ccTLD unless 1) it's from a stable first-world democracy, and 2) I have either citizenship or a strong business presence in that country. Having said that, if OP is from the United States, I can sort of understand why the conclusion goes "avoid all ccTLDs." Americans have a tendency to treat the initial set of gTLDs as their own -- not only .gov, .mil, and .edu, but all the well-known ones, too.
  - graemep 3y ago
    I would add, if it is the place where your business is located (or you live). Regardless of how good or bad a government it is, you are already subject to its jurisdiction.
    - kijin 3y ago
      Depends on how permanent you think your current location is. Someone living and doing business in Canada might be eligible for .ca right now, but what if they decide to immigrate to the United States, and do business in the Bay Area instead? That's a fairly common situation for startup founders, but things can get really hairy unless they are a full Canadian citizen.

trimethylpurine 3y ago

ccTLDs are issued by IANA which is literally setup by the US government. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Assigned_Numbers_Authority https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Assigned_Numbers_Au... Meanwhile ICANN is an international company so it doesn't answer to any government except within their respective borders.

kijeda 3y ago
The US Government ended its involvement in IANA when it moved to an international oversight model in 2016. IANA is operated by Public Technical Identifiers which is an affiliate of ICANN, and ICANN provides all of its funding. Governments have a say in how ICANN operates through its Government Advisory Committee, at which all governments — including the US — have a seat.
- trimethylpurine 3y ago
  Great clarification. What I'm poking at is that in all likelihood the US will hold the same view towards a gTLD as a ccTLD and for the same reasons. It is in line with Western ideals to preserve free speech, and so governments of Western societies must appeal to those ideals. The US is no exception, as seen by its willingness to be hands off with regards to IANA and ICANN.