Could .io domains be history in 5 years?

mee2 · October 9

How a UK treaty could spell the end of the .io domain / .io is the country code domain for the Chagos Islands — or the British Indian Ocean Territory — which the UK just agreed to relinquish control of.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/8/24265441/uk-treaty-end-io-domain-chagos-islands

bikegremlin · October 10

Clickbait - probably (haven't read it - LOL).

io is huge, I don't think it's going anywhere. Money.

Amadex · October 10

@bikegremlin said:
Clickbait - probably (haven't read it - LOL).

io is huge, I don't think it's going anywhere. Money.

cries in .yu 😅

bikegremlin · October 10

@Amadex said:

@bikegremlin said:
Clickbait - probably (haven't read it - LOL).

io is huge, I don't think it's going anywhere. Money.

cries in .yu 😅

LOL.

Yes, there was no big corpo money invested in any .yu domain stuff (but invested into destroying it LOL).

root · October 10

I don't think .IO will go anywhere. It is generating money.

yoursunny · October 10

Delete the .io domain outright immediately.
Let the tech startups feel the pain of VirmAche users who have to deal with IP changes without notice.

Amadex · October 10

@yoursunny said:
Delete the .io domain outright immediately.
Let the tech startups feel the pain of VirmAche users who have to deal with IP changes without notice.

nagasaki_castella · October 11

I'm curious if it will be a .su mate.

Janevski · October 11

@Amadex said:

@bikegremlin said:
Clickbait - probably (haven't read it - LOL).

io is huge, I don't think it's going anywhere. Money.

cries in .yu 😅

I remember this yu website which was full of mp3s.
And they would put their domain in the metadata so it would display in Winamp...
The downloads were really slow and only one file at a time.
I forgot the site.

vyas · October 12

Some venture or PE funded entity might hire a bunch of smart lawyers to arrange for “transfer” of .io to Mauritius 🇲🇺, then license on exclusive basis.

If there is enough money to be made, commercial interests will follow

Amadex · October 12

@Janevski said:

@Amadex said:

@bikegremlin said:
Clickbait - probably (haven't read it - LOL).

io is huge, I don't think it's going anywhere. Money.

cries in .yu 😅

I remember this yu website which was full of mp3s.
And they would put their domain in the metadata so it would display in Winamp...
The downloads were really slow and only one file at a time.
I forgot the site.

muzika.co.yu or cafe.co.yu?

mfs · October 12

@vyas said: Some venture or PE funded entity might hire a bunch of smart lawyers to arrange for “transfer” of .io to Mauritius

I miss why they couldn't just s/British/Mauritius/g on https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/io.html and call it a day; even more considering that Chagossians have been completely deprived of any royalty on .io so far, and they're claiming royalties on .io since at least 2021. It would make sense to call the region "Overseas Territory" just to claim all the rights pertaining to the TLD; even more considering that this UK-Mauritius Treaty follows a 2017 advisory opinion of the ICJ stating that the United Kingdom “has an obligation to bring to an end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible, and that all Member States must co-operate with the United Nations to complete the decolonization of Mauritius”

adly · October 12

@mfs said: even more considering that Chagossians have been completely deprived of any royalty on .io so far, and they're claiming royalties on .io since at least 2021

There have been no permanent residents on the islands for decades, and the domain came into existence while there was no permanent residents. It's right that the court ruled the way it did and that sovereignty is being returned, but who exactly would royalties be owed to?

vyas · October 13

@adly said:

@mfs said: even more considering that Chagossians have been completely deprived of any royalty on .io so far, and they're claiming royalties on .io since at least 2021

There have been no permanent residents on the islands for decades, and the domain came into existence while there was no permanent residents. It's right that the court ruled the way it did and that sovereignty is being returned, but who exactly would royalties be owed to?

That’s why I said investors with a bunch of smart lawyers…investors to look at cost versus benefit (mainly legal fees and licensing on cost side, accrued and future value on benefit side).

If there is a business case, then
Create a document trail : ownership, residency (i.e establishment of claim), lobbying, PR….2-3 year time investment…counter claims…

If a 4-5x return is seen only then makes sense.
Its all about money

mfs · October 13

@adly said: who exactly would royalties be owed to?

To the ones who were unlawfully deported? It's not like they had the choice to be no more residents of that area.
Past royalties are... past, future claims may belong to one who are no more unlawfully deported, one could argue. OTOH, it's true that, if "chagossian islands" weren't "Indian Ocean" territory, there would have been no .io ccTLD to start with.
Chi ha avuto ha avuto, chi ha dato ha dato: if Mauritius are smart enough, they could administratively rename the islands following the British nomenclature. If they aren't smart enough, money talks and .io is too big to disappear

adly · October 13

@mfs said: To the ones who were unlawfully deported? It's not like they had the choice to be no more residents of that area.

I still can't see how residents, who admittedly were expelled by force in 60s-70s, would be owed royalties from a domain TLD established by a private company in the 90s. The TLD wasn't taken from anyone, and indeed it's unlikely it would even exist without the efforts of the private company.

mfs · October 13

@adly said: I still can't see how residents, who admittedly were expelled by force in 60s-70s, would be owed royalties from a domain TLD established by a private company in the 90s

Because they were unlawfully deported, according to the ruling of the ICJ, respected by the UK.
About the "private company": nobody cares about the profit of a private company, some may care about the royalties that company administering a ccTLD has to give to the country "owning" that ccTLD (and effectively paid off to UK by Internet Computer Bureau/Afilias etc), if the country is found to be unlawfully owning that ccTLD. I can see the reasoning for the past claims against Afilias, OTOH (as I wrote) is it weren't for the brits, there would have been no .io ccTLD to begin with.
I'm not surprised Afilias explicitly recalled RFC-1591 ("For top-level domains that are country codes at least the administrative contact must reside in the country involved") to resist the "repatriation" claims, whilst the non-judiical panel concluded that "multinational enterprises should be able to demonstrate that they have carried out human rights due diligence" and nothing else. Truth be told, I don't believe it's Afilias or a "private company" duty to "respect human rights" not respected by their countries, but I digress.

adly · October 13

@mfs said: Because they were unlawfully deported, according to the ruling of the ICJ, respected by the UK.

Nobody is disputing that, and every effort should be made to undo the wrongs of the past. But the TLD wasn't taken from anyone, it was brought into existence by an unrelated entity long after the forced deportation.

@mfs said: and effectively paid off to UK by Internet Computer Bureau/Afilias etc

"neither the UK government nor the BIOT administration receives revenue from the sale of .io domains, which are administered independently by the ICB." (here).

Clearly it's a sensitive topic, and I'll draw the line here, but the claims suggested here against the TLD are reaching quite a bit imo. What next? France owes past revenue for everything created in England during the Norman occupation?

mfs · October 13

@adly said: "neither the UK government nor the BIOT administration receives revenue from the sale of .io domains, which are administered independently by the ICB."

Yeah, that's cited in the plea against Afilias and was argued one year earlier by BIOT , with arguments about the opposite being true, including words from the former ICB administrator. The FOI release you are quoting end with "Some information is withheld under section 41 (information provided in confidence) and section 43 (commercial interests)"; ICB was possibly the only non-military contractor with BIOT.
All this being said, your preoccupation about the Norman occupation seems to draw a false analogy. But let's draw the line there I guess.

Could .io domains be history in 5 years?

Comments