Bit.ly and the Dangers of ccTLDs
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
Is it wise to run a web service using a questionable country code domain?
I’ve warned about the dangers of country code top level domains. Rogers Cadenhead made some interesting observations about Bit.ly, a URL shortening service that just scored $2M in funding.
You see, .ly is the country code for Libya, which has a not-so-great history with the United States. He also points out some of the rules attached to country code domains. I’ve written before about .AE for United Arab Emirates that restricts uses within Muslim law. There’s no poker.ae, for example. The same thing goes for .ly. This presents a problem since the Bit.ly service let’s you forward to just about any web site with any topic. Technically the content isn’t hosted on a .ly domain, but the danger is there that Libya would lay the hammer on this.
No serious business should use a country code domain name other than a major, unrestricted domain without special content rules.
At least they got something right — they do own bitly.com
But that is too long of a domain to use for a URL shortening service… Right?
LOL
On the money Andrew, that is real reporting and a great observation.
Cheers
Sahar
They could take that 2 million.. and buy a 2 letter .com.
Hi,
Kevin is right.
Even 1M should be enough to buy 2 letter domain however if the goal is to have to shortest domain possible then the extension should be 2 chars as well.
[...] More from Domain Name Wire: [...]
Dear Author, just a correction about .AE domains: you mentioned there is no poker.ae, however after the entry of aeDA in August 2008, there is now poker.ae and even casino.ae!
[...] is subject to the lifeline of a third party service. And with many URL shorteners operating on questionable country code domain names, the risks are [...]
[...] .ly domain in particular has lots or risk. Could Libya shut down bit.ly if it wanted? Perhaps because someone uses the service to distribute [...]
[...] unrest to question the fate of a country code domain name. Back in 2009 Rogers Cadenhead asked a pointed question about .ly given Libya’s reputation in the [...]