Free Registrar co.cc Goes the Way of the Dodo

First time accepted submitter Nexus Unplugged writes "Free domain provider co.cc seems to have quietly and mysteriously disappeared. No official explanation has yet been provided, but a cached copy suggest that they stopped accepting new registrations some time ago. Speculation, however, seems to come to a single conclusion. From the article: 'Due to its free nature (and it's $10 for as many as you want), Co.CC was abused and used for scams and spamming and was even de-listed by Google at one point although they did re-enable it. Getting back to the article on hand a few days ago Co.CC seems to have removed its DNS records which ultimately has stops its own site from working and every sub domain it provided.' It's worth noting that free domains are still easily obtainable from places like DotTK."

Comments

No surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

We can't have anything good and free because scumbags will take advantage of it.

Re:No surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

It costs money to pollute that stuff!

Re:No surprise

[ikaruga]

Specially for DNS. It's already pretty bad people buy domain names that they'll never use so that they can resell it later for 50+ times the price.

still several for subdomains

[Trepidity]

If you're okay with a subdomain rather than looking to register directly under a TLD, FreeDNS is another one that's been around for a while, though they target themselves a bit more at people who want a changeable hostname for their dynamic IP (a free alternative to the used-to-be-free-but-now-isn't DynDNS).

Re:still several for subdomains

[omnichad]

.co.cc is already a subdomain.

Some geographical .us subdomains are still free

[Anonymous Coward]

.wa.us is a good example. You can get seattle.wa.us and other such cities free. It's managed through nwnexus.com. I've always just contacted their sales staff to request forms to register a .seattle.wa.us or .olympia.wa.us for example. They're long, but definitely free.

Re:Some geographical .us subdomains are still free

[anasciiman]

Can you explain this to me in detail? Their site has nothing specific to how this is done... Thanks.

Google offers very robust free subdomains

[Andy Prough]

under the mygbiz.com address.

DotTK questions

[Freshly Exhumed]

If I write an NTP server in Tcl/Tk and register it on Dot.TK could I call it ticktock.tcl.tk?

Re:DotTK questions

[dissy]

Actually tcl.tk is already the primary domain for active tcl.
I reference wiki.tcl.tk and their online man pages there frequently.

Re:Blocked It At My Job

[Anrego]

Myabe it's just one of those things that only geeks notice, but it still boggles my mind when I see companies (not even small ones) with a website on freewebs and matching hotmail email.

Sounds like a good target for creative commons

[epSos-de]

.CC should become the Creative Commons domain. All websites under this top level must be forcefully re-mixable with attribution. The world would be a much richer place. The creative commons movement is great and is far more profitable than the licensed content model, if you know how to use it properly.

Re:Great big .tk advertisement

[Larryish]

.tk sucks

Their machine runs like so:

They give you a "free domain", and then when your DNS queries reach a certain number, they suspend your domain for "unspecified reasons" and then make you pay twice the price of .com to have the domain re-enabled.

Don't use .tk for anything that isn't disposable.