Is the .to (Tonga) domain completely rogue and should be removed?

Thu Oct 1 23:09:16 UTC 1998

Nobody warned me that Jim Fleming had a brother!  Ayeiii....

We now return you to TongaV8, in progress..

Karl 

>
>Not clear. Obviously .to is being run in a very unusual way. Among
>other things, I guess the spammers can instantly sign up new domains
>for their web sites as fast as .to can take them down (which isn't
>very fast, but for discussion's sake.)
>
>That's quite unusual, and the entire activity seems to have nothing to
>do with the Kingdom of Tonga or any entitites within that country
>except inasmuch as they seem to look the other way and probably get
>some money for it (others have claimed this.)
>
>But the proof is in the pudding, ADULTSIGHTS.COM is finding the way
>the .to domain is being managed very useful to their mass spamming and
>other criminal (e.g., domain hijacking) activities.
>
>Taken togther, I say that's a problem. What should be done about it is
>yet another question, of course.
>
>Also, I'm not sure I agree with your characterization that businesses
>etc which have registered a Tongan domain, but have no other
>relationship with Tonga, are "legitimate".
>
>They may be banal, harmless, other than what may well be prima facie
>evidence of intent to defraud by advertising a business etc in a
>country they don't actually have any presence in, but that doesn't
>necessarily make the usage "legitimate".
>
>I don't think I'd want to be on the wrong side of a court case, even
>if unfair, with the other side pointing out that I was doing business
>via a network address in the Kingdom of Tonga, unless I really had a
>good reason for doing so other than "I thought the name was cute". The
>law doesn't tend to look kindly on businesses which purposely
>obfuscate their identity and whereabouts.