I am from Belarus (country behind this tld).

I'd invest a lot of time into reading all documents before doing some serious project using these top domain names. We still have some problems with corruption and civil rights..

And people should probably be aware that politics can result blocking their domain for any reasons, like the .ly case, shouldn't they?

Another no-go domain is .mm[1].

The .ly fad aside, using random, unusual TLDs is something I have a lot of problems seeing the point of. Getting a nice shorturl is fine, but you have to make damn sure that the shorturls will always work.

[1]: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/.mm

Yeah, Burma, but really there are lots of other. IMO the rule is quite simple - if the tld is under control of a nic in a country having problem with freedom per western standards, better not to depend on it. However bit.ly somehow manages to successfully work regardless the theoretical risk.

You should do some research on Belarus before sending them money.

Quick correction - .by is the ccTLD for Belarus and is not regulated by ICANN.

Interesting. I'll make the change.

One should definitely be careful when registering domains that belong to countries which not really democracies.

Remember that they can switch off your domain at any moment. And by no means build your business on it.

vb.ly is a good example: http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2010/10/the-ly-domain-space-to-b...

I think this has been blown a little out of proportion. I haven't actually heard of any other .ly domains that this has happened to.

No, I haven't neither. I'm not saying don't register any .ly or .by or whatever domain, I'm just saying be cautious. (See my other post with "legal actions".)

As if democracy is the property which reveals whether the government employees are good or corrupt.

Right, but even if there are corrupt government employees and you are discriminated by the government (employees), you have always the option to take legal actions.

In some countries you can't take legal actions that easy, especially against the government.

Here's another example (coincidentally it's Belarus again): http://snarkerati.com/tv-news/belarus-big-bang-theory-rip-of...

Getting a .gd domain from modone.gd was not quite as slow, but was similarly not fully automated - but their service was really good, and I always got a personal reply from their domain manager. I wouldn't dismiss all lesser used TLDs - and .gd has loads of great short names left.

I reg'd we.gd and om.gd - hope to have something interesting up on them both soon.

I tried to register mib.by

They took the money, then a couple of weeks later said it "had been denied" for some reason or other. I think they said that someone local owns a trademark on 'mib' or somesuch.

It's still unregistered and unused.

Trying to register these types of domain is more hassle than it's worth. I did get a refund (after I requested it).

Now I'm hearing that the Nameservers have to be in .by country when you register. What about curated.by? Are there nameservers really in Belarus?

Whats the cost for one in USD? It says "79 000 rub". I'm sure that means ~2527 USD, but I guess I can hope that it means ~2.50 USD. :)

PRICE AND PAYMENT

Primary registration - 33 USD (1st year).

Renewal of registration per year - 33 USD (2nd and every following year).

source: http://domain.by/instructioneng_new.html

current exchange rate is ~3100 belarussian rubles for $1.

The site says "rub" which is the abbreviation for a Russian ruble.

we have rubbles in Belarus too. But they are not russian rubbles, but belarussian rubbles (like there is canadian dollar, australian dollar, etc).

The confusion was because RUB seems to be the abbreviation for the belarussian rubble.

Just as USD is the American dollar, and AUD is the Australian dollar.

I wouldn't want to be out $2k based on reading something wrong. :)