
The Dark side of .io TLD - xdmnl
http://www.thedarksideof.io/
======
dogma1138
The archipelago was first settled in the 19th century, only about 1500 people
were displaced, yes the British government mistreated these people by not
properly compensating them because the US and NATO needed a military base in
the region.

However there are urban restructuring projects every day in western countries
that displace more people without proper compensation than this incident.

And while i understand that some people might feel they've been stripped of
their homeland, but considering that the Islands were populated for the 1st
time in modern history less than 200 years ago and remained populated for a
period of only about a 100 years it's not exactly the strongest backing for a
claim to a nation.

~~~
creshal
> However there are urban restructuring projects every day in western
> countries that displace more people without proper compensation

Such as? Most western legal systems require compensation in such cases… at
least in theory.

~~~
talmand
I think the key is in who gets to define what is "proper" compensation.

~~~
teknologist
There's no number high enough- at the end of the day people will just cry out
"amagad but our homes!" and claim that that's priceless and forever want money
and sympathy from everyone. A line must be drawn somewhere.

~~~
talmand
As long as the line is more on the side of the majority feeling it fair as
opposed to a certain minority feeling it advantageous, then I'm fine with
that.

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mahouse
>They lost all rights to their homeland, now including the valuable .io TLD.

You don't want to know what happened in the United States... Or everywhere, to
that matter.

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mattezell
"...and for being cheap."

Admittedly, I am ignorant to many of the TLDs available today... But having
primarily dealt with .com and .net TDLs previously (and their <$20USD price
tag), is there something else at play when considering the cost/value ratio of
an .io domain? Something that would make sense to refer to it as 'being
cheap', despite it's costing 100%+ more than a 'traditional' TLD?

I get that 'io' is two letters rather than three and so it's "cool"... And
that an io domain has potential for "domain hacks" (I assume they are talking
about a neat looking URL, where the 'io' has significance in the brand and
URL)... But is 'cheap' accurate?

Just curious - honest question... When I read 'cheap' as one of the primary
bullet points (of the few cited bullet points) for the io TLD, I thought
"There must be a lot that I don't know about io TLDs - let's ask".

Thanks!

~~~
gabipurcaru
while a .io domain is more expensive than a .com domain, you have to take into
consideration that all the good .com domains are already taken (and you have
to buy them from third parties for more money), while you still can get some
good .io domains

~~~
talles
Sure, but there's still some good .io domains available exactly because they
aren't cheap (right?).

~~~
Aldo_MX
I pay <40 USD / year for taco.io, I have no idea of how much million dollars
(which obviously I can't afford) would taco.com be worth.

~~~
talles
Mind sharing your registrar?

~~~
Aldo_MX
Sure, [https://www.gandi.net/](https://www.gandi.net/)

------
andyjohnson0
Some background via gigaom:

The dark side of .io: How the U.K. is making web domain profits from a shady
Cold War land deal [https://gigaom.com/2014/06/30/the-dark-side-of-io-how-
the-u-...](https://gigaom.com/2014/06/30/the-dark-side-of-io-how-the-u-k-is-
making-web-domain-profits-from-a-shady-cold-war-land-deal/)

UK government denies receiving .io domain profits
[https://gigaom.com/2014/07/11/uk-government-denies-
receiving...](https://gigaom.com/2014/07/11/uk-government-denies-receiving-io-
domain-profits/)

------
profmonocle
Not to ignore the bigger issue, but the site implies .io would belong to the
Chagossian people today if this hadn't happened. But the IO country code is
derived from "British Indian Ocean Territory". Is it likely that the Chagos
Archipelago would have this ISO 3166 code if the deportation hadn't occurred?

~~~
r0muald
Well, it would still be in the Indian Ocean, for a start.

However, if you look at the list of .cX TLDs, all possible obvious results are
already taken by (alguably) bigger states: Switzerland, Canada, Congo,
Colombia and .. well .cs is complicated.

That still leaves room for solutions like .ic (Islands of Chagos), in a
similar vein to .im for the Isle of Man, and you could have cool domain hacks
like fanf.ic or grabthem.ic.

Or, since Diego Garcia is the largest island, .dg, and cash out from D&G.

------
eli
Paypal donate link to a gmail address makes me a little nervous. Is
[http://www.chagossupport.org.uk/](http://www.chagossupport.org.uk/) a
legitimate and well-run charity? Where specifically does the money go?

~~~
Sulfolobus
It isn't a charity as far as I can tell (or at least does not have UK
charitable status): the only registered charity with Chagos in the name is the
Chagos Conservation Trust[1].

This means that UK Chagos Support Association does not have to follow charity
law (i.e. be open about their work among other things), have a purpose
considered as "charitable" [2], be run my trustees that don't personally
benefit and/or be run independently. However, they could still be doing these
things but be unable to register as a charity due wanting to do things that
are prohibited as a charity e.g. "benefiting interests of a narrow closed
group" or "campaigning for a change of government" among others [3]

(Of course it is open to debate whether many actual charities properly fulfil
the stated requirements)

[1]
[http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfC...](http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/CharityWithoutPartB.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=1031561&SubsidiaryNumber=0)

[2] [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/what-makes-a-
char...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/what-makes-a-charity-
cc4/what-makes-a-charity-cc4#part-2-about-charitable-purposes)

[3] [https://www.gov.uk/how-to-set-up-a-charity-
cc21a#step-1-deci...](https://www.gov.uk/how-to-set-up-a-charity-
cc21a#step-1-decide-if-a-charity-is-the-right-option)

~~~
eli
Thanks for the detailed answer. Even if the law doesn't require it, I'm pretty
wary of donating to a cause that doesn't voluntarily open its books.

And I say that as a .IO owner who was ready to get out my credit card.

~~~
chagosuk
Hi all, my name's Stefan Donnelly and I am the Committee Chair of UK Chagos
Support Association. Firstly, thanks for the donations for those who have
chipped in!

To answer some of the questions raised about our group, we are not a
registered charity. We did attempt to register but were told our aims were too
overtly political to qualify as a charity. So yes we are a non-profit,
entirely voluntary I should add, we have no paid staff and committee members
get nothing for their work.

On where the money goes, its pretty evenly split between supporting Chagossian
community projects (including training classes and Chagos Islands football
team), supporting impoverished Chagossians in times of hardship and
campaigning for Chagossian right to return.

Over the past year we have done a lot on the latter as the previous Government
committed to 'resolving the issue,' though then did not do so. This is
everything from paying for transport to protests and printing materials to
promoted posts of Facebook.

For reasons of scale we haven't in the past arranged to be audited or
published full accounts as it just wouldn't have been worth it for the small
amount of money and limited donor base we had. As we look to fundraise more
online, however, I appreciate it is reassuring to have that bit of extra
detail and I think our next AGM will publish much more substantial reports on
our income and spending, which we'll be happy to make public.

The point has been made before to me that the Gmail address looks at bit dodgy
and transferring it over to the @chagossuport address (which we do actually
hold) is certainly on the to-do list.

Hope that's answered some of the, very legitimate, concerns raised. If anyone
has any further questions, on this or anything else about the campaign, feel
free to ask

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teknologist
Deported at the _request_ of the United States. A crucial bit of information
left out on that fancy page there.

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kenrick95
The site pointing out the dark side of .io is ironically on .io TLD.

~~~
worklogin
No, it's not ironic at all. It's not asking people to stop using .io. It's
asking people using .io to support a fund that supposedly helps the cause of
natives of the island.

Did you read the link?

~~~
kenrick95
Yup I've read.

By using .io TLD, they are submitting to the UK government on what should be
theirs. It may be like rebels claiming a territorial independence but then
still pay taxes to the government for that particular territory.

~~~
seszett
Most non-violent independentists in western countries pay taxes. Actually,
even most violent independentists pay taxes as well so they can conduct their
activities without attracting attention from the government.

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davidjgraph
Alexa ranked .io domains list from last month [http://hack.ly/articles/the-
most-popular-dot-io-domains-2015...](http://hack.ly/articles/the-most-popular-
dot-io-domains-2015/).

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skandl
Thanks for sharing. This is a history I was completely unaware of.

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jfernandez
"...its possiblities for domain hacks..."

Ok I'll admit it, I'm a little lost. What do they mean by this?

~~~
yannickmahe
Companies will get .io domains to appeal to developers as it looks like I/O
(in/out).

~~~
talles
Or for using it with words ended with "io" (like scenar.io, portfol.io and
such)

~~~
MichaelGG
Does this work well? A friend did that for his company and it was a real pain
to explain that the last two letters of a full word have a dot first. Ended up
getting the .com.

I've got ci.al (so.ci.al, fa.ci.al, etc), I think, but trying to tell someone
that over voice seems... problematic.

~~~
mortehu
Usually startups using this kind of domain end up moving to .com once they get
funded. I do data mining for a VC, and see this all the time.

~~~
richardbrevig
Off topic, but I'm curious what kind of data mining the VC has you doing.

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Dirlewanger
Haha, oh wow. This is actually real?

The irony of it...holy shit it's painful. And listed supporters _all having
.io_.

If people can't see the near-masterful irony here, you're already lost.

Has someone bought up thedarksideof.ly yet????

