Thursday, March 15, 2007

World's riskiest domains

Diminutive island-state Tokelau has the highest concentration of risky websites (spam harvesters, virus infectors, etc.) of all domains in the world.

A study by McAfee and discussed in Forbes.com article Surf at Your Own Risk identifies the world's riskiest domains.
World's Riskiest Web Domains:
  1. Tokelau (.tk)
  2. Information (.info)
  3. Samoa (.ws)
  4. Romania (.ro)
  5. Commercial (.com)
  6. Business (.biz)
  7. Russia (.ru)
  8. Network (.net)
  9. Families and Individuals (.name)
  10. Slovakia (.sk)
XXX does not mark the spotI was surprised that the .xxx domain wasn't on the list (.xxx is for use by adult entertainment companies). But looking into it, I noticed ICANN still had not approved it yet.

The Toronto-based company International Foundation for Online Responsibility is leading the charge for this new top-level domain. (Toronto as adult industry centre? Well LavaLife and Ashley Madison did start here.)

I noticed there is a lot of controversy surrounding .xxx. It seems like a great idea to me. I think all pornographers should be forced to use it. This would make me happy as a parent (as filters could easily block all sites with that domain) but also as a hapless employee who has accidentally opened "inappropriate" websites at work (seriously, by accident! - including an unfortunate search for info on Margaret Trudeau that turned up something, or rather someone, else!).

What's the problem with .info?
I was surprised that .info is so dubious. I've been trying to get our site to use that domain in addition to .com and .ca for a couple years. Guess there's no hurry...

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