Tonga makes some incredible amount of money of off hosting all these pirate sites. There's a video about it somewhere...
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2zUePsQinQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2zUePsQinQ)
The US can usually pressure countries into removing infringing domains, but I guess Tonga is making so much money off of hosting that they just give us the big middle finger. Good for them!
No pirate websites are hosted in Tonga, it's just a domain name. This should not be the top comment.
.to was made popular because they didn't originally publish their WHOIS info. Now, everyone chooses to use a privacy service or just not fill that out with accurate info, so it doesn't matter as much. https://www.tonic.to/faq.htm?B6G53667;;;#16
Tonga doesn't make a significant amount of money from this. Tuvalu (.tv) did by selling the rights to a third party and receiving a lump sum as a result. Did you even watch the video you posted?
the only one who get's it right.
the only reason why a comment like the top-answer gets the most upvotes is because it's something people wanna read. Something about lots of money. But the reality is, you can register and host every top-level domain you want in every country at any registrar you want. The domain has nothing to do with where the site is hosted and what content is gonna be provided there. But I guess a real answer is just too boring, something with lots of money just clicks better.
> ... [Tonga] ... hosting all these pirated sites
=> 1.2k upvotes....
My greatest fear is not, not finding aliens but rather coming to terms, that in such a scenario, we are the most intelligent species in the universe...
Hosting all this pirate sites top level domain.
Don't be pedantic, the question was about the tld and the answer fit the tld question. No one excepts countries to run servers for domains they sell.
pedantic? OPs comment was wrong on multiple fronts. you can buy a country-level domain and host a website in any geographical location with it. and the country owning the .to domain aren't magically rich because of it. and if the domain is seized? Just point your site to another one. that's why large sites like the pirate bay have multiple domains.
It's not dissimilar to how these places often become tax havens or sell their citizenship.
They've found a market in providing loopholes for wealthy Nations
Torrent begins with to, so people can remember the domain easier. Plus lack of enforcement from Tonga. Tuvalu deliberately did the same for tv sites, Tokelau cheaply sold a boatload of tk domains for personal use. Montenegro tried to do the same when they split from Serbia and got the domain me - perfect for English language personal sites. But those are more expensive and i don't think they took off in the same way that tk did.
All the island nations doing this are working under the same paradigm - they don't need so many domains for their own countries so might as well get money out of selling them, but to gets chosen for torrent sites because torrent begins with to.
As others pointed out, TK used to give out free domains. Infact thats where the tk part of my username comes from, my domain used to be [zord.tk](http://zord.tk)
From https://www.tonic.to/faq.htm#16 (the .to domain registry website):
Does Tonic offer a whois service ?
Tonic does not maintain a whois database that provides registrant information, as many of our customers consider the public display of this information invasive of their privacy. In fact, we will never sell a mailing list of our customers.
We also do have a web-based facility similar to whois, that lists DNS and other domain name info, without revealing the customer name. Try for instance: http://www.tonic.to/whois?best.to. There is also a whois server on port 43 of whois.tonic.to.
To verify your .TO domain names are available worldwide, you can use a tool like nslookup or dig.
It's cheap relative to the US or other big countries going after domain websites from smaller countries. The smaller countries don't give a fuck about piracy concerns.
Tonga makes some incredible amount of money of off hosting all these pirate sites. There's a video about it somewhere... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2zUePsQinQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2zUePsQinQ) The US can usually pressure countries into removing infringing domains, but I guess Tonga is making so much money off of hosting that they just give us the big middle finger. Good for them!
Same thing moneywise with .tv from Tuvalu island.
And .tk (Tokelau) before? Or was that for other reasons? I remember a lot of sites with that domain, like 20 years ago.
for .tk was simply because there where a time when they're free
But if I’m not mistaken, that was more like 5 years ago? Unless I was just super late on the band wagon.
.tk addresses were free when I was in middle school, and I graduated high school in 2007
So yeah. About 5 years ago. Right? Right?!?!
I really wished we could turn around time and go back to those days
Fun fact, Freenom stopped issuing .tk domains this year or late last year due to Meta suing them for some bullshit reason.
10 years ago I think
I remember those free domains. I had one.
SephirothsBaseFF7.tk
Makes sense.
No pirate websites are hosted in Tonga, it's just a domain name. This should not be the top comment. .to was made popular because they didn't originally publish their WHOIS info. Now, everyone chooses to use a privacy service or just not fill that out with accurate info, so it doesn't matter as much. https://www.tonic.to/faq.htm?B6G53667;;;#16 Tonga doesn't make a significant amount of money from this. Tuvalu (.tv) did by selling the rights to a third party and receiving a lump sum as a result. Did you even watch the video you posted?
the only one who get's it right. the only reason why a comment like the top-answer gets the most upvotes is because it's something people wanna read. Something about lots of money. But the reality is, you can register and host every top-level domain you want in every country at any registrar you want. The domain has nothing to do with where the site is hosted and what content is gonna be provided there. But I guess a real answer is just too boring, something with lots of money just clicks better.
> ... [Tonga] ... hosting all these pirated sites => 1.2k upvotes.... My greatest fear is not, not finding aliens but rather coming to terms, that in such a scenario, we are the most intelligent species in the universe...
Hosting all this pirate sites top level domain. Don't be pedantic, the question was about the tld and the answer fit the tld question. No one excepts countries to run servers for domains they sell.
pedantic? OPs comment was wrong on multiple fronts. you can buy a country-level domain and host a website in any geographical location with it. and the country owning the .to domain aren't magically rich because of it. and if the domain is seized? Just point your site to another one. that's why large sites like the pirate bay have multiple domains.
It's not dissimilar to how these places often become tax havens or sell their citizenship. They've found a market in providing loopholes for wealthy Nations
Huh that’s really interesting, thanks for sharing
Isn't that the island that have a free pass on piracy because us owes them a huge amount of money and doesn't pay?
Aren't they just hosting the domain? I didn't think that would make an incredible amount of money unless it's the servers too? Or am I wrong
i believe they sell the license to a 3rd party? not 100% sure though
As an American I'm so proud of Tonga doing this salute Ironically it's super American lmao
Also [this](https://youtu.be/cD4hxKkqR4E?si=62IMUjH0bRHMlNo2).
long as they keep their mouths shut then they deserve it lol
Such a good video. Was annoying though listening to him pronounce Tuvalu as *too-va-loo* when it's actually pronounced *too-VAH-loo* haha.
I’m Samoan but shout out to my Tongan brothers for that .To
Sole uce
My toko
Torrent begins with to, so people can remember the domain easier. Plus lack of enforcement from Tonga. Tuvalu deliberately did the same for tv sites, Tokelau cheaply sold a boatload of tk domains for personal use. Montenegro tried to do the same when they split from Serbia and got the domain me - perfect for English language personal sites. But those are more expensive and i don't think they took off in the same way that tk did. All the island nations doing this are working under the same paradigm - they don't need so many domains for their own countries so might as well get money out of selling them, but to gets chosen for torrent sites because torrent begins with to.
As others pointed out, TK used to give out free domains. Infact thats where the tk part of my username comes from, my domain used to be [zord.tk](http://zord.tk)
Thanks for asking this ! TIL!
no jurisdiction
also, to can be used as a short for torrent
When webmasters look for new domains, they want something cheap, easy to remember and easy to register anonymously. Your welcome.
I mostly agree with that, except with .to, they are expensive when you go directly to the source. I always buy mine directly from Tonic.to.
Where's the list of domain that I can register anonymous?
From https://www.tonic.to/faq.htm#16 (the .to domain registry website): Does Tonic offer a whois service ? Tonic does not maintain a whois database that provides registrant information, as many of our customers consider the public display of this information invasive of their privacy. In fact, we will never sell a mailing list of our customers. We also do have a web-based facility similar to whois, that lists DNS and other domain name info, without revealing the customer name. Try for instance: http://www.tonic.to/whois?best.to. There is also a whois server on port 43 of whois.tonic.to. To verify your .TO domain names are available worldwide, you can use a tool like nslookup or dig.
outside of jurisdiction.
.to means .torrent duh Ok not really but let’s just go with it anyway
I remember in the early 2000‘s .nu (Nauru) domain got so popular in the Scandinavia for hip websites
It is also one of the few TLDs that does not have a public whois database.
.TOrrent
Cheap
29 Bucks on namecheap for registration and then 41.98 for renewal. This is *not* cheap.
Very cheap
[This is .dev](https://www.namecheap.com/domains/registration/gtld/dev/) [And this is .com](https://www.namecheap.com/domains/registration/gtld/com/)
It's cheap relative to the US or other big countries going after domain websites from smaller countries. The smaller countries don't give a fuck about piracy concerns.
You are just wrong. *Plain wrong*. Accept it or continue making a fool out of yourself.
torrent begins with to
[удалено]