4 ms·

That's a good question. As I understand it, taking control of the .ir domain from Iran would make as much sense as taking control of the street address of their

That's a good question. As I understand it, taking control of the .ir domain from Iran would make as much sense as taking control of the street address of their embassy. Not the embassy or the property it sits on, mind you, but the address itself. If my interpretation is correct, then the absurdity of the plaintiff's request is obvious.

pdabbadabba 12y ago
I'm not sure the analogy holds up since a TLD is separable from the IP it points to and, thus, can have separate commercial value. There is really no way to do this (that I am aware of) with street addresses.
- thirdtruck 12y ago
  Someone else (perhaps the EFF) made the point that the TLD's whole value is derived from how it points to Iran's IP addresses instead of anywhere else. Does this comparison make more sense? TLDs as a combination of a street address and the name of the business at the address; if either one is out of sync (e.g. the store moved), then the combination is worthless.
astrodust 12y ago
Is three any legal precedent for owning a street address? Isn't the postal service or municipality at liberty to renumber things as they see fit? I know several people that have had to "move", file change of address forms, even though they're in the same physical structure.
- thirdtruck 12y ago
  The latter makes sense. At the same time, neither the postal service or municipalities have the liberty to say that Best Buy is at a given address when you'll actually find a Fry's. Well, they can claim it, but no one's going to believe them after they make the trip. I think that's the big difference: The Iran TLD isn't just "owned" by the country, the TLD is supposed to factually represent the location of the country's IPs. It's similar to how only government agencies or the like are supposed to have .gov domains.

4 ms·

That's a good question. As I understand it, taking control of the .ir domain from Iran would make as much sense as taking control of the street address of their

by thirdtruck 12y ago

pdabbadabba 12y ago
I'm not sure the analogy holds up since a TLD is separable from the IP it points to and, thus, can have separate commercial value. There is really no way to do this (that I am aware of) with street addresses.
- thirdtruck 12y ago
  Someone else (perhaps the EFF) made the point that the TLD's whole value is derived from how it points to Iran's IP addresses instead of anywhere else. Does this comparison make more sense? TLDs as a combination of a street address and the name of the business at the address; if either one is out of sync (e.g. the store moved), then the combination is worthless.
astrodust 12y ago
Is three any legal precedent for owning a street address? Isn't the postal service or municipality at liberty to renumber things as they see fit? I know several people that have had to "move", file change of address forms, even though they're in the same physical structure.
- thirdtruck 12y ago
  The latter makes sense. At the same time, neither the postal service or municipalities have the liberty to say that Best Buy is at a given address when you'll actually find a Fry's. Well, they can claim it, but no one's going to believe them after they make the trip. I think that's the big difference: The Iran TLD isn't just "owned" by the country, the TLD is supposed to factually represent the location of the country's IPs. It's similar to how only government agencies or the like are supposed to have .gov domains.