Obscure gTLDs for vanity domains are harmful, though not usually because they legitimise some kind of war crime or whatever. You often end up at the whims of some faraway government who doesn’t owe you anything, and will probably violate TLD rules. A whole bunch of fancy TLDs come with “you have to be a citizen I this country or we can revoke your domain at any time” rules.
As a recent example: .af was used for vanity domains (risky.af, cool.af, etc.), which is the TLD for Afghanistan. When the Taliban took over and most countries cut their ties with the remaining government services, many people essentially lost the ability to renew their domains, or even update their details in some cases.
Freenom disappearing into thin air also caused many people to lose their domains with no prior notice. Customers of TLDs like .ml lost control for a while (affecting lemmy.ml). While the .ml situation isn’t quite as problematic as the .af situation, Mali and ECOWAS were at odds (threatening military intervention) and Mali has signed a new defensive pact last month, so who knows what may happen to .ml domains the next five years.
If you’re going for a vanity domain, get one from a purely commercial TLD or take a good, hard look at the requirements for a geographic TLD. As UK companies owning .EU domains found out, your situation may change and you could be forced to give up your domain.
Obscure gTLDs for vanity domains are harmful, though not usually because they legitimise some kind of war crime or whatever. You often end up at the whims of some faraway government who doesn’t owe you anything, and will probably violate TLD rules. A whole bunch of fancy TLDs come with “you have to be a citizen I this country or we can revoke your domain at any time” rules.
As a recent example: .af was used for vanity domains (risky.af, cool.af, etc.), which is the TLD for Afghanistan. When the Taliban took over and most countries cut their ties with the remaining government services, many people essentially lost the ability to renew their domains, or even update their details in some cases.
Freenom disappearing into thin air also caused many people to lose their domains with no prior notice. Customers of TLDs like .ml lost control for a while (affecting lemmy.ml). While the .ml situation isn’t quite as problematic as the .af situation, Mali and ECOWAS were at odds (threatening military intervention) and Mali has signed a new defensive pact last month, so who knows what may happen to .ml domains the next five years.
If you’re going for a vanity domain, get one from a purely commercial TLD or take a good, hard look at the requirements for a geographic TLD. As UK companies owning .EU domains found out, your situation may change and you could be forced to give up your domain.