Perhaps, have you heard of the domain name .io? Friends who have been tinkering with technology for many years should be more aware of the popularity of the .io domain name in the circle. Because io, or I/O, is the abbreviation of Input/Output (input/output) in the computer field, and the similar shapes of 1 and 0 are the basis of everything in binary.
Therefore, when many start-ups and technology companies are building websites, and some technology geeks are building personal websites, they will first consider the .io domain name, such as Github.io.
Around 2015, a large number of online multiplayer games suddenly emerged, such as the popular "Ball Battle", and the websites of this type of games would use .io as the suffix, so "io games" once became an exclusive term.
In the past few years, .io was particularly favored by blockchain projects. In 2021, a domain name called Metaverse.io was resold for more than one million yuan.
But, something has happened recently, which may cause this cool domain name to no longer exist in the future.
Well, last week the British government announced that it would return the Chagos Islands, which was originally colonized in the Indian Ocean, to Mauritius.
At first glance, this is international political news, but you may not know that every country and region willYes and onlyA code and country code top-level domain.
For example, our code is CN, the top-level domain name is .cn, and the country code of the Chagos Islands is IO (British Indian Ocean Territory). This top-level domain name was originally assigned to the Chagos Islands.
In other words, once sovereignty returns to Mauritius, the original relatively independent identity of the Chagos Islands will no longer exist. As part of Mauritius, it would seem a bit rebellious to use the original country code and top-level domain name. .
Those of you who registered the .io domain name before will be at a huge loss.Not even half way into starting a business, the website was killed by someone else...
But Shichao thinks that the .io domain name may not really disappear in the end.
Before analyzing the reasons, we must first understand the entire operating system of the domain name.
According to the provisions of the International Organization for Standardization, all country and region codes are determined by the international standard ISO3166.The two-letter codes corresponding to different countries and regions are also different.
Another organization, IANA, also called the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, will allocate top-level domain names based on codes arranged by international standards.
However, this IANA was first managed by the United States, and later its functions were transferred to ICANN, a non-profit international organization, of which IANA became a department.
Now, ICANN controls the distribution of top-level domain names, but it does not care about such trivial matters as domain name registration.
For general top-level domain names such as .com and .net, who can obtain authorization depends entirely on their ability.
But like country top-level domain names, ICANN is authorized by the country. And in most cases, national top-level domain names are also operated by government agencies. For example, our .cn is managed by the China Internet Network Information Center, and Singapore's .sg is also managed by the Singapore Network Information Center.
However, there are exceptions to everything. Some countries will also outsource the use rights (not ownership) of domain names, and exchange them every year. Small island countries such as Tuvalu (domain name .tv) and the Koko (Ski) Islands (domain name .cc) have previously authorized domain name hosting company Versign. Including the .io of the Chagos Islands, the British government also transferred the rights to use domain names.
Further down, there is the domain name"Secondary Dealer", like Godaddy, domestic Alibaba Cloud, and Western Digital, these registrars directly connect with people who want to register domain names.
In the entire operating framework, money basically flows to the domain name custodians (government operating agencies) and registrars under ICANN.
As for how profitable domain name registration is, let's put it this way: Versign, the world's largest domain name hosting provider, holds several top-level domain names such as .com, .net, .gov, and .cc, with revenue of nearly US$1.5 billion in 2023.
AI has become increasingly popular in the past two years, and Angela, whose domain name is .ai, has also made a lot of money. According to a report by foreign media TheVerge, Angela earned US$25 million to US$30 million from domain name registration websites last year.
And our protagonist today, .io, can also sell for a better price than other domain names.
Of course, commercial value is not the only reason why Shichao believes that .io can be preserved. More importantly,Things like country-level top-level domain names that should have been revoked but were not, have happened before.
In fact, in the early days of the Internet, the one-to-one correspondence between country codes and domain names was not actually that strict.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, although the domain name .su was assigned to Russia, Russia had already changed the domain name to .ru in 1994, and .su was not recycled.
At that time, IANA urged me hard, but the Russian side was stunned and refused to say when they would give up .su.
Theoretically, Russia can only have one country code top-level domain name, but as of today, .suSoviet relicYou can also register online. . As for the reason, a foreign media report stated that it was "at the request of the Russian government and Internet users."
A similar example was when Yugoslavia disintegrated (the domain name was .yu). Serbia and Slovenia, including Serbia, were all trying to grab the inheritance rights of the .yu domain name. Then the following scene happened:
According to foreign media reports, because the domain name control center is at the University of Belgrade in Serbia, Slovenian scholars went to Serbia and stole all the hosting software and .yu domain name records. After taking control of the domain name, they rejected all domain name registration requests from Serbia. .
As a result, the founder of IANA personally came forward and forcibly returned the ownership of the domain name to Serbia. But the final result was that no one actually got hold of the .yu domain name, and they all got new ones.
With the lessons learned from the past, IANA's regulations are now more stringent. Once the country is disintegrated or merged, domain name recovery will be handled as it should be, and the process is clearly written.
However, I looked through the specific provisions. Although it is certain that the Chagos Islands will be returned to Mauritius, the domain name is generally removed after five years by default. Even owners of .io domain names can apply for an extension.Push the deadline to ten years later.
So can we understand that this time .io still has a lot of room for maneuver before it is officially retired? (dog head)
Because of io, perhaps it has become a lot ofSpiritual symbols in the minds of technologists. It would be a shame if it just disappeared.