Was there some sort of assurance that nothing was going to happen when the contract expired, and this expectation was changed? Freenom hasn’t been registering domains since Jan 1.
It’s seeming a little odd to me that this is catching people with their pants down.
For anyone looking for alternatives, I think this list is the most up to date: https://free-for.life/#/?id=domains
Ah nice. I used to use them ages ago. Nice to see the service still exists.
It’s very irregular for a country to take back top level domains. Even refusing to renew registrations is unheard of.
ML, tk, etc broke ground by offering free country code TLDs starting 10 years ago. This was possible until Meta sued Freenom this year for issuing domains to the majority of all sources phishing traffic.
Basically, the internet got used to getting TLDs for free, and that was great, except the issuers of said domains (African countries with not a lot of money) have no obligation and no incentive to keep doing that forever. Especially after it became a liability.
Is it? Because pretty much every ccTLD is owned by their given country. They have all rights over it, but some registrars took it to themselves to issue those domains on the countries’ behalf, that probably didn’t even know about it way back.
Free TLDs may have been great for hobbyists, but also great for spammers, phishers and other unlawful activities. And as usual, the bad bunch killed a good thing.
If you want a good TLD, use a generic one (org, name, space, etc.) or use a ccTLD that represented by your own country.
Why is it surprising that a ccTLD is reclaimed by their own designated country? Same with .vu and .tk
vu: https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/vu.html
Actually, I think it’s amusingly perfect that the tankies were hyperfocused on conjectural threats posed by capitalists and entirely missed the much more imminent threat posed by a government.
What is a tankie? First time I’m seeing it today.
From wikipedia
Tankie is a pejorative label for communists and those who align with Marxism–Leninism ideology. More generally, the term “tankie” has been applied for those who express support for one-party socialist republics that are associated with Marxism–Leninism, whether contemporary or historical.
They usually praise communism and ignore the flaws and horrible practices of things like the U.S.S.R
so a bit like holocaust deniers but on the left extreme of the spectrum
