[At-Large] DomainIncite : Is this why WhatsApp hates some TLDs but not others?

Wed Sep 13 14:55:24 UTC 2023

Folks,

While I agree with Evan that most Internet users don’t know and don’t care about some less used TLDs - in the same way as most drivers and car buyers don’t know and don’t care about some less used car brands - I am missing something about the “problem" that started this thread, i.e.:

Developers of major pieces of internet software, including the world’s most-popular messaging app, may be relying on seriously outdated lists of top-level domains.

There is one single authoritative source of information, maintained by IANA, that is the root zone file. Why on earth should ICANN maintain a second one? This fancy tendency by developers (I can say that, as I have been in that business for decades) to rely on alternate sources of information and/or make incorrect assumptions (like assuming that TLDs are max 3 chars long, except for ARPA) is the root cause of most of the problems.

By the way, when we say “One world, one Internet” we implicitly condemn having alternate or secondary sources of information about the Internet components.

Cheers,
Roberto

> On 13.09.2023, at 15:50, Evan Leibovitch via At-Large <at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org> wrote:
> 
> Can't say that I'm surprised. Welcome to the totally predictable consequences of ICANN's:
> Insisting that it's not a regulator
> Making "global" decisions without weight of international treaty
> Expanding the gTLD space *well* beyond that which benefits Internet users.
> At-Large's most useful activity is to document and publicize the list of gTLDs unrecognized by the Android library, and to encourage ICANN to engage with Android developers to update the library.
> 
> It should be telling that nobody has noticed this problem that has existed since 2015, and that the news appeared in an industry news site rather than in the IT mainstream. That tells me that most Internet end-users don't know and don't care about these other domains.
> 
> There's a lesson here to be learned.
> 
> Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada
> @evanleibovitch / @el56
> 
> 
> On Tue, Sep 12, 2023 at 10:43 AM Dev Anand Teelucksingh via At-Large <at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org <mailto:at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org>> wrote:
> "Developers of major pieces of internet software, including the world’s most-popular messaging app, may be relying on seriously outdated lists of top-level domains.
> That’s the picture that seems to be emerging from one new gTLD operator’s quest to discover why WhatsApp doesn’t recognize its TLD, and many others including major dot-brands, as valid."
> 
> ....When most social media apps detect the user has inputted a URL or domain name, they automatically “linkify” it so it can be easily clicked or tapped without the need for copy/paste.
> 
> But when Rami Schwartz of new gTLD .tube discovered that .tube URLs sent via WhatsApp, said to have two billion users, were not being linkified, despite the TLD being delegated by ICANN almost eight years ago, he set out to find out why.
> 
> Schwartz compiled a spreadsheet (.xlsx) listing which gTLDs are recognized by WhatsApp and which are not and discovered a rough cut-off point in November 2015. TLDs delegated before then are linkified, those delegated after were not......This means that, for example, .microsoft domains linkify but .amazon and .apple domains do not; .asia domains linkify but .africa and .arab domains do not; .london works but .abudhabi doesn’t. Even .verisign missed the cut-off.
> 
> If WhatsApp users include a “www.” or “http://” then the app will linkify the domain, even if the specified TLD does not exist.
> 
> .....During the course of a discussion <https://github.com/publicsuffix/list/issues/1807> on the web site of the Public Suffix List — which maintains an open-source list of all TLDs and the levels at which names may be registered — it was discovered that the problem may be deeper rooted than the WhatsApp app.
> It turns out a library in the Android operating system <https://cs.android.com/android/platform/superproject/main/+/main:frameworks/base/core/java/android/util/Patterns.java;l=114> contains a hard-coded list of valid TLDs which hasn’t been updated since November 24, 2015"
> 
> Read full article : 
> https://domainincite.com/29054-is-this-why-whatsapp-hates-some-tlds-but-not-others <https://domainincite.com/29054-is-this-why-whatsapp-hates-some-tlds-but-not-others>
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Dev Anand Teelucksingh
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