4 ms·

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 to

• 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.
• ithkuil 3y ago
  Iirc .io is not _a_ country but a territory of another country (British Indian ocean territory). A similar case is for American Samoa (.as), Guam (.gu). Etc. Although it is technically correct to say they are not "internationally recognized countries", that's because they are not countries, not because they are not internationally recognized (they very much are). Thus the qualifier is confusing. It is like if I claimed that my cat is not an "dog from this planet". That statement is true not because my cat comes from another planet, but simply because it's not a dog in the first place.
  • nicole_express 3y ago
    The difference between the British Indian Ocean Territory and say, American Samoa is that, as far as the BIOT government is concerned, there is no permanent population there. Obviously the US military base can just use .mil. So if ccTLDs are limited to locals, nobody is entitled to .io at all. The Chagossians do exist, and I'm not trying to diminish their claims. But my understanding is that they claim the islands as a part of Mauritius, which also has its own domain name (.mu), and wouldn't identify with the colonial BIOT government that expelled them in any case.
    • ithkuil 3y ago
      Yeah, the timeless misalignment between what ought to be and what technically is
    • Symbiote 3y ago
      It's still a territory with some governance and so on. https://www.biot.gov.io/ https://www.biot.gov.io/ is a genuine use. https://www.sure.io/ https://www.sure.io/ is another (an ISP).
    • graemep 3y ago
      Is the the Chagossians who claim the islands as mart of Mauritius or the Mauritians? There are also a number of other territories that are not countries that have ccTLDs: .re, .gs, .mq, .fk etc.
• PeterisP 3y ago
  That's the whole point - don't treat "ccTLDs" as a single category, and the diference there shouldn't be between "exotic ccTLDs" and "common ccTLDs" but rather "your ccTLD" and "foreign ccTLDs". If you are in Afghanistan and run your business in Afghanistan in a legitimate way, intending to comply with Afghanistan laws, then there's no issue at all in using an .af TLD. And conversely, you should treat e.g. .uk and .fr as "exotic" if you're not in there and don't intend to spend the time and effort to learn about what is permitted there and not, it would make all sense for you to get kicked off of these domains by doing something that's obviously legal where you live.