domain names

Those letters at the end of web addresses can mean big bucks — and, for some small countries, a substantial part of the national budget. Zachary Crockett follows the links.

• SOURCES:
  • Vince Cate, technical contact for the .ai domain in Anguilla.
  • Kim Davies, Vice President of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority Services and President of Public Technical Identifiers at ICANN.
  • Tianyu Fang, contributing editor at Reboot.

• RESOURCES:
  • "The Two-Decade Fight for Two Letters on the Internet," by Jacob Judah (The New York Times, 2024).
  • "Whose Domain Is It?" by Tianyu Fang (Reboot, 2023).
  • "How a Tiny Pacific Island Became the Global Capital of Cybercrime," by Jacob Judah (MIT Technology Review, 2023).
  • "The Tropical Island With the Hot Domain Name," by Rachel Metz (Bloomberg, 2023).
  • "The Never-ending ccTLD Story," by Peter K. Yu (SSRN, 2003).

Wes shares the story of how the Taliban stole his .af domain. Scott and Wes discuss top-level domain (TLD) best practices, how to find unique custom domain names for your website, and how to avoid having yours stolen.

Show Notes

• 00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
• 00:16 Brought to you by Sentry.io
• 01:11 The story of how the Taliban stole my domain.
• 05:10 When you purchase a domain, does that country receive the registration fee?
• Country Code Top-Level Domain
• Infrastructure Top-Level Domain
• Generic Top-Level Domain
• Sponsored Top-Level Domain
• 07:29 Notion lost their .so domain.
• Notion
• 09:18 .ai domain names.
• 09:53 Other popular TLD options.
• tolin.ski
• wes.io
• 12:05 What are the best TLDs?
• 13:18 iwantmyname

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