I’m in the process of updating the IPs for a whack of domain names and realized something about some of the top-level (and second-level) domains out there. Some of them, at least in English, were chosen really poorly:
- bj
- bo
- bs
- co.ma
- com.et
But none are as potentially nasty as the one bestowed upon the Cook Islands: .ck. I know, that doesn’t look remotely bad on its own. But like many top-level domains, they require a second-level domain to distinguish between corporations, government agencies, organizations, etc.
The company domain for the Cook Islands?
co.ck
I swear I’m not making this up.
You really have to wonder what was going through someone’s head when they approved that. They could have taken the tack they took in places like Australia, where it’s com.au, not co.au, given the Cook Islands com.ck. But no, they went with the pornographic.
You’d also think this would be Cook Island’s chance to totally dominate the pornographic domain business. But they took the moral high road and have denied domains to anyone wanting obscene or profane domains: porn need not apply.
The strange things you find while doing your job…
