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https://hccf.onmy.cloud/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/dot-self.pdf https://hccf.onmy.cloud/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/dot-self.... > Everyone entitled to a subdom

https://hccf.onmy.cloud/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/dot-self.pdf https://hccf.onmy.cloud/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/dot-self.... > Everyone entitled to a subdomain at no cost How are you going to pay for the (substantial) cost of running a TLD without registration fee revenue? Is this a loss leader for other services? Are you operating on a 100% donation model? > No parking, squatting, or reselling How do you plan to tell the difference between a parked/squatted domain and one in legitimate use but offering no public-facing services?

pavel_lishin 3mo ago
It's not clear whether they're actually talking about domains or subdomains there, which is a worrying sign from a potential registrar.
- favorited 3mo ago
  Any domain that isn't one of the Top Level Domains is also a subdomain.
  - maximilianthe1 3mo ago
    Isn't the actual top level domain an empty one after TLD? Looking like «.com.» with trailing dot
  - akerl_ 3mo ago
    I mean sure, but if you started talking about google.com as a subdomain, real humans would correctly look at you funny.
HumanCCF 3mo ago
> How are you going to pay for the (substantial) cost of running a TLD without registration fee revenue? Is this a loss leader for other services? Are you operating on a 100% donation model? We plan on operating the domain as a public good and are actively seeking sponsors to help fund us. Think of it as a similar model to ISRG and LetsEncrypt. > No parking, squatting, or reselling Our rule of one person per subdomain will hopefully prevent this at scale, though it will admittedly be more difficult to examine any particular domain so closely. We may have to implement some type of heartbeat where the owner of said domain has to respond within a certain amount of time.
- al_borland 3mo ago
  How is one person per subdomain enforceable? How is a person uniquely identified and tracked?
  - dom96 3mo ago
    My guess is by using ID verification similar to how I do it on https://onlyhumanhub.com/ https://onlyhumanhub.com/
    - kokanee 3mo ago
      I'm curious about how this works, but it doesn't look like I can find out without creating an account. I see that it says "Link your existing social accounts to prove you're not a bot." How does having social media accounts prove I'm not a bot?
      - dom96 3mo ago
        If you're interested in detail of how it works, I wrote about it here: https://blog.picheta.me/post/the-future-of-social-media-is-human/ https://blog.picheta.me/post/the-future-of-social-media-is-h...
        kokanee 3mo ago
        I see -- the statement "Link your existing social accounts to prove you're not a bot" is intended to mean that after you have verified your identity by scanning your passport, you can prove you're not a bot on your BlueSky account. The phrasing is misleading, and the home page seems to omit the most important part: you have to scan your passport.
    - SahAssar 3mo ago
      So you have just built a wrapper around https://passportreader.app/ https://passportreader.app/, which itself is reading NFC enabled ID/passports from specific countries. The coverage map is here: https://passportreader.app/coverage https://passportreader.app/coverage. Might be good to know that even in the US this approach would only work for ~50% of people, since a lot of people don't have passports. In most countries this does not work at all, since they don't issue NFC enabled ID/passports.
AnthonyMouse 3mo ago
> How are you going to pay for the (substantial) cost of running a TLD without registration fee revenue? Is it actually a substantial expense? The TLD itself only has to publish the nameserver records, which generally have a TTL of about a day. A DNS response is a few hundred bytes. Big DNS providers like Google and Cloudflare would make requests for every actively used domain every day, but then cache them. Smaller providers wouldn't cache as well but also wouldn't each request every domain every day. For e.g. a million personal domains, ballpark estimate is somewhere in the few TB a month of traffic. Maybe a little over personal hobby project money but definitely not outrageous for a small non-profit organization. > How do you plan to tell the difference between a parked/squatted domain and one in legitimate use but offering no public-facing services? This is the easy one. Squatters buy domains because they want to sell them. To sell them they have to make it publicly known to prospective buyers that the domain is available for sale. So then if anyone lists the domain for sale anywhere, you make them prove that they own it (which any actual buyer would also have to do in order to not get scammed) and when they do the domain is forfeit. It's kind of sad that we don't do that for all domains. Domain squatters can go to hell.
- madsushi 3mo ago
  It costs ~$200,000 to apply for a TLD, and there's an ongoing renewal cost in the tens of thousands of USD.
  - AnthonyMouse 3mo ago
    That's definitely not a cartel then.
  - HumanCCF 3mo ago
    For this application round, ICANN is running an Applicant Support Program, or ASP. The applicants seeking to apply for a TLD this round who qualify for the ASP will have a substantially reduced application fee, among other benefits. Our organization is one such org who has qualified for the ASP so we will not have to pay the full $227,000 application fee.
psychoslave 3mo ago
Might be a public service? I guess many countries already had such a thing with running cost several order higher than such a thing as a TLD, operating for centuries now.
- miki123211 3mo ago
  Countries have the loop of "taxpayers pay government -> government funds service -> service benefits taxpayers." You can't do that if you offer the service to the general internet.
  - psychoslave 3mo ago
    Why not? I would happily see a fraction of my taxes go into such a project.
prepend 3mo ago
Is it really that expensive to run a TLD? Name servers are notoriously long running on ancient spec servers. I’m guessing, if designed well, the registration process could run on lightweight infrastructure. Maybe $1-5k total per year, not counting time. So it’s enough for a fun hobby project.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]

pavel_lishin 3mo ago

It's not clear whether they're actually talking about domains or subdomains there, which is a worrying sign from a potential registrar.

favorited 3mo ago
Any domain that isn't one of the Top Level Domains is also a subdomain.
- maximilianthe1 3mo ago
  Isn't the actual top level domain an empty one after TLD? Looking like «.com.» with trailing dot
- akerl_ 3mo ago
  I mean sure, but if you started talking about google.com as a subdomain, real humans would correctly look at you funny.

HumanCCF 3mo ago

> How are you going to pay for the (substantial) cost of running a TLD without registration fee revenue? Is this a loss leader for other services? Are you operating on a 100% donation model? We plan on operating the domain as a public good and are actively seeking sponsors to help fund us. Think of it as a similar model to ISRG and LetsEncrypt. > No parking, squatting, or reselling Our rule of one person per subdomain will hopefully prevent this at scale, though it will admittedly be more difficult to examine any particular domain so closely. We may have to implement some type of heartbeat where the owner of said domain has to respond within a certain amount of time.

al_borland 3mo ago
How is one person per subdomain enforceable? How is a person uniquely identified and tracked?
- dom96 3mo ago
  My guess is by using ID verification similar to how I do it on https://onlyhumanhub.com/ https://onlyhumanhub.com/
  - kokanee 3mo ago
    I'm curious about how this works, but it doesn't look like I can find out without creating an account. I see that it says "Link your existing social accounts to prove you're not a bot." How does having social media accounts prove I'm not a bot?
    - dom96 3mo ago
      If you're interested in detail of how it works, I wrote about it here: https://blog.picheta.me/post/the-future-of-social-media-is-human/ https://blog.picheta.me/post/the-future-of-social-media-is-h...
      - kokanee 3mo ago
        I see -- the statement "Link your existing social accounts to prove you're not a bot" is intended to mean that after you have verified your identity by scanning your passport, you can prove you're not a bot on your BlueSky account. The phrasing is misleading, and the home page seems to omit the most important part: you have to scan your passport.
  - SahAssar 3mo ago
    So you have just built a wrapper around https://passportreader.app/ https://passportreader.app/, which itself is reading NFC enabled ID/passports from specific countries. The coverage map is here: https://passportreader.app/coverage https://passportreader.app/coverage. Might be good to know that even in the US this approach would only work for ~50% of people, since a lot of people don't have passports. In most countries this does not work at all, since they don't issue NFC enabled ID/passports.

AnthonyMouse 3mo ago

> How are you going to pay for the (substantial) cost of running a TLD without registration fee revenue? Is it actually a substantial expense? The TLD itself only has to publish the nameserver records, which generally have a TTL of about a day. A DNS response is a few hundred bytes. Big DNS providers like Google and Cloudflare would make requests for every actively used domain every day, but then cache them. Smaller providers wouldn't cache as well but also wouldn't each request every domain every day. For e.g. a million personal domains, ballpark estimate is somewhere in the few TB a month of traffic. Maybe a little over personal hobby project money but definitely not outrageous for a small non-profit organization. > How do you plan to tell the difference between a parked/squatted domain and one in legitimate use but offering no public-facing services? This is the easy one. Squatters buy domains because they want to sell them. To sell them they have to make it publicly known to prospective buyers that the domain is available for sale. So then if anyone lists the domain for sale anywhere, you make them prove that they own it (which any actual buyer would also have to do in order to not get scammed) and when they do the domain is forfeit. It's kind of sad that we don't do that for all domains. Domain squatters can go to hell.

madsushi 3mo ago
It costs ~$200,000 to apply for a TLD, and there's an ongoing renewal cost in the tens of thousands of USD.
- AnthonyMouse 3mo ago
  That's definitely not a cartel then.
- HumanCCF 3mo ago
  For this application round, ICANN is running an Applicant Support Program, or ASP. The applicants seeking to apply for a TLD this round who qualify for the ASP will have a substantially reduced application fee, among other benefits. Our organization is one such org who has qualified for the ASP so we will not have to pay the full $227,000 application fee.

psychoslave 3mo ago

Might be a public service? I guess many countries already had such a thing with running cost several order higher than such a thing as a TLD, operating for centuries now.

miki123211 3mo ago
Countries have the loop of "taxpayers pay government -> government funds service -> service benefits taxpayers." You can't do that if you offer the service to the general internet.
- psychoslave 3mo ago
  Why not? I would happily see a fraction of my taxes go into such a project.

prepend 3mo ago

Is it really that expensive to run a TLD? Name servers are notoriously long running on ancient spec servers. I’m guessing, if designed well, the registration process could run on lightweight infrastructure. Maybe $1-5k total per year, not counting time. So it’s enough for a fun hobby project.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]