Am I Crazy or is the Mali Government Reclaiming the ml Domain Now is too Convenient of a Time?

Gutotito, 10 months ago

I can't imagine why. As much as I love the fediverse and what it stands for, it's barely a blip on anyone's radar at this point.

Norgur, 10 months ago

If there was a conspiracy, then it would be because of the military mails thing that went public a few days ago. It's not, the switch was to be expected, but still. They're not after stupid Lemmy, if anything, they are after military secrets

redcalcium, 10 months ago

• A company somehow secured a contract with Mali government to manage .ml TLD
• Said company then offer free .ml domain registration, with a catch (the domain is not actually yours). They also sell the domain and if you pay for it, the domain will be really yours contractually.
• The contract between the company and Mali government came to an end, and the control of .ml TLD has been transferred back to Mali government
• Mali government decided they want all those free domains back and did just that. Those domains will likely available for sale again later on.
• why Lemmy.ml is not affected? I’m not sure. Does Lemmy.ml use the free domain service, or actually paid for the domain? Or does it survive simply because it has absurdly long TTL on it’s DNS entries?

SilentStorms, 10 months ago

A conspiracy to do what? Take down Lemmy? I swear people here overstate our importance. This is a comparatively tiny website.

Wasn’t the contract ending causing the domain control to transfer to Mali known for quite a while?

SilentStorms, 10 months ago

Also, I’m now picturing a general in a war room in Mali saying “This Lemmy site is becoming too powerful. Shut it down. They should’ve known better than to mess with Mali! Muahahahah!”

HipPriest, 10 months ago

This got a proper laugh out of me and that rarely happens, well done!

BettyWhiteInHD, 10 months ago

Am I crazy but is using a domain typically used by any government a really stupid idea in the first place?

I get that it was free or cheap, but come on, nobody saw this coming?

Bipta, 10 months ago

Nation TLDs are used pretty frequently and this is really never the outcome.

Flax_vert, 10 months ago

My instance is .uk, many places use .gg or .io, ironically all of those are British

redcalcium, 10 months ago

It has happened before with the .ly domains about a year before the US invasion of Libya. Tech companies were scrambling to find a solution back then. Presumably they struck a backroom deal with the Syrian government.

some_guy, 10 months ago

Yes. If you genuinely believe there’s a conspiratorial effort to… take down some lemmy instances (?) via TLD removal (??), you should probably speak with a professional therapist.

eee, 10 months ago

Buddy you overestimate the importance of lemmy i’m afraid

Mereo, 10 months ago

sigh, no its not a conspiracy. Lemmy is just a little speck on the internet right now.

Flax_vert, 10 months ago

They are taking it down because they always gave out .ml domains for free. Like just buy a domain, gosh. They only cost like £10 a year

deafboy, 10 months ago

What is it good for to own it, when they’re not even able to operate it? :P

Mugmoor, 10 months ago

Occam’s Razor bud. Learn it and use it, it’ll save you a lot of stress.

HipPriest, 10 months ago

Who is this Occam and how much will be charge me per year to use his razor?

Mugmoor, 10 months ago

It’s a really complicated answer.

SoNick, 10 months ago

@HipPriest Only a few dollars a month if you use the link in the description and sponsor code "Occam"

@counselwolf @Mugmoor

AlexisFR, 10 months ago

No, that’s just the consequence of choosing a cheap domain name.

pacology, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

ml was managed by freenom for a long time. They made it available alongside tk domains.

Freenom stopped operations for sometime and both Mali and Tokelau are in the process of taking over their registrars from freenom.

It’s more of an example of a coincidence than a conspiracy.

wildbus8979, 10 months ago

They aren’t “reclaiming” the top level domain, they’ve always owned it. They are simply not renewing the contract which was ending with Freenom.

kadu, 10 months ago

A conspiracy by whom? To do what?

Top level domains are a significant source of revenue. As the “.ml” gets used more often due to “machine learning” of course the government will try and explore this further.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA, 10 months ago

I knew I shouldn’t have posted grandma’s secret butter recipe on .fmhy.ml (the secret is you churn it)