[Netcraft] Free domains put Mali back on the map – for phishing

[fonz]

[Netcraft] Free domains put Mali back on the map – for phishing

As stated in this post:

When the African nation of Mali announced that it was going to provide free .ml domains from July, their goal was to put Mali back on the map. It appears they have now succeeded, but perhaps not in the way they had intended — thanks to the free domains, Mali now has the most phishy [...]

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This makes me wonder: why would a country - and particularly a developing one - give out free domains? Besides the predictable abuse potential, some developing countries actually use their TLD to generate revenue, e.g. Tuvalu (.tv) and Nauru (.nu (nu means now in several languages)).

 

[SirDice]

From the Guardian article that's linked in the article:

"We are proud to be the first African nation to give domain names for free," says Moussa Dolo, general manager of Mali's Agence des Technologies de l'Information et de la Communication (AGETIC). "By providing free domain names to internet users worldwide, we will put Mali back on the map. We wish to show the rest of the world the fantastic opportunities our country has to offer."

So, it's a typical "this sounds like a really good idea but we really haven't thought things through".