That’s a horrible thing the British government have done
I’m not sure that’s a good reason not to use the domain though, if we didn’t use anything that horrible people had a hand in making we wouldn’t be talking here right now
As I understand it, this isn’t a resolved conflict in the past but rather an ongoing one. So yes, it does matter if you decide to give an oppressive British company or the Taliban money. And apart from that, as a German, I’m very much aware that we are not responsible for the wrongdoings of our ancestors but are responsible not to forget and thus repeat them. People who were victims under colonialism or any other form of oppression deserve at least recognition and compensation. Just continuing to live with the current condition shaped by oppression means supporting the oppression.
But it’s still a bad idea to use national TLDs for stuff that has nothing to do with that nation.
Granted, is ICANN wasn’t just a money-grabbing machine with no forward thinking they wouldn’t give nations clearly “generally desirable” gTLDs, but since they did already that doesn’t mean they should be misused.
It’s really frustrating in general how TLDs have been misused and abused over the years. They used to have very specific meanings and usages. Now anyone can register a .net or .org, and don’t have to prove they’re a network service provider or a non-profit.
People also forget that URLs designate a hierarchy, reading from right to left. For example, take the URL app.foobar.com
This designates
. -> There’s an understood period at the end that’s not typed. But it designates the root (or, well, top in this case) of the hierarchy
com -> The commercial space (hence top level domain)
foobar -> Company named Foobar in the commercial space
app -> The app site/service/etc from Foobar
If you’re using a domain like foobar.tv, you’re saying you’re an organization called Foobar based in Tuvalu. There’s still plenty of restricted TLDs (.gov and .mil e.g.), but everything has been thrown to the wind for the sake of cleverness, and spammers have ruined anything else that’s not .com for your average user. Your personal info site generally isn’t a commercial page, so .com doesn’t make sense. But other gTLDs get blocked by default by so many admins, it’s pointless to try.
That’s a horrible thing the British government have done
I’m not sure that’s a good reason not to use the domain though, if we didn’t use anything that horrible people had a hand in making we wouldn’t be talking here right now
As I understand it, this isn’t a resolved conflict in the past but rather an ongoing one. So yes, it does matter if you decide to give an oppressive British company or the Taliban money. And apart from that, as a German, I’m very much aware that we are not responsible for the wrongdoings of our ancestors but are responsible not to forget and thus repeat them. People who were victims under colonialism or any other form of oppression deserve at least recognition and compensation. Just continuing to live with the current condition shaped by oppression means supporting the oppression.
They’re two separate(ish) issues.
But it’s still a bad idea to use national TLDs for stuff that has nothing to do with that nation.
Granted, is ICANN wasn’t just a money-grabbing machine with no forward thinking they wouldn’t give nations clearly “generally desirable” gTLDs, but since they did already that doesn’t mean they should be misused.
It’s really frustrating in general how TLDs have been misused and abused over the years. They used to have very specific meanings and usages. Now anyone can register a .net or .org, and don’t have to prove they’re a network service provider or a non-profit.
People also forget that URLs designate a hierarchy, reading from right to left. For example, take the URL app.foobar.com This designates
. -> There’s an understood period at the end that’s not typed. But it designates the root (or, well, top in this case) of the hierarchy
com -> The commercial space (hence top level domain)
foobar -> Company named Foobar in the commercial space
app -> The app site/service/etc from Foobar
If you’re using a domain like foobar.tv, you’re saying you’re an organization called Foobar based in Tuvalu. There’s still plenty of restricted TLDs (.gov and .mil e.g.), but everything has been thrown to the wind for the sake of cleverness, and spammers have ruined anything else that’s not .com for your average user. Your personal info site generally isn’t a commercial page, so .com doesn’t make sense. But other gTLDs get blocked by default by so many admins, it’s pointless to try.